


becoming

by stopcryingyoullrust



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Family Reunions, Fix-It, Gen, Grogu | Baby Yoda Needs a Hug, Identity Issues, Injury, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Finale, The Force
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopcryingyoullrust/pseuds/stopcryingyoullrust
Summary: For a split second, Fennec wonders if he’s still in there or if they are left with a beskar husk and it’s only a matter of time before whatever force that still holds it up dissipates completely and they’ll watch all the armor pieces fall to the ground.Post-finale fix it. The end of season 2 opened many plotholes, I’m just trying to spackle them over.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 94
Kudos: 237
Collections: Noromo Mando: Mandalorian Genfics Collection





	1. Chapter 1

The elevator doors fall close with a hiss, cutting them off from the stranger, his droid and the child Mando has handed over.

It all happened so fast; Fennec feels the adrenaline pumping on through her veins, readying her for the would-be fight they were meant to lose and she has to make a conscious decision to relax her fingers, still clenched on her blaster. And to, well, reassess. She looks over her fellow fighters, all quiet and seemingly as discombobulated as she feels, no one daring enough to break the silence just yet. The other Mandalorians in particular are tense, standing straight as if they swallowed a spear. Fennec’s eyes meet Cara’s on the other side of the room. She’s holding onto Gideon’s limp body like a poor consolation prize. And as Cara’s gaze shifts to Mando, Fennec recognizes the question on her face. She’s seen that look in people’s eyes many times before, shortly before snuffing the light out of them.

From her spot Fennec doesn’t have the right angle to see the man’s face, thankfully, but the image of the back of his head still sears into her memory. It feels like an act of intrusion, taking part in something private and sacred. And the man looks... _weak_. Fennec’s mind supplies the word without conviction. He’s a living oxymoron, a skilled killer wrapped in a buffed-up undersuit and beskar, and yet, utterly defenseless. Witnessing it is innately unnatural, making her itch in her own skin.

Fennec puts her blaster in its sheath. She comes up behind him, picks up his helmet and with an outstretched arm holds it up beside his left arm, careful to keep her eyes on the ground. When nothing happens, she clangs the helmet against his pauldron.

“Take it,” she says. There is no answer.

Fennec sighs. She takes the helmet, stands behind him and tries awkwardly pushing it down his head. It sits awry. “Boba warned me that something like this might happen and that I need to deal with it. Now, are you going to make me break my promise?” 

There's no reply to the joke, not even an acknowledgement that he heard her, no attempt to pressurize the helmet or at least fix it. He shivers slightly and this seems like the only response she’s going to get. 

“So, you’re gonna stand there till tomorrow?” Bo-Katan’s voice rings out through her helmet.

Fennec snaps toward her, taking out her gun and raising it. The movement is immediately mirrored by Koska.

“The darksaber belongs with me,” Bo-Katan informs them through gritted teeth.

“Hey, miss,” Cara says and steps over Gideon. “You’re outnumbered. I strongly advise you not to start shit you won’t be able to finish.”

“Outnumbered? Oh, it is touching you count him,” Koska throws back, her head tilting at Mando. “Regardless, it does not concern you, Dropper. ”

“I can make it my concern. My afternoon just opened up,” Cara says.

Fennec shoots her a warning glance. She wouldn’t put it past Bo-Katan to shoot Gideon out of spite, just so Cara has nothing to bring back to The New Republic to make up for her recent unauthorized escapades. Mando’s in no shape to battle out the custody of the weapon and there's no way to tell when he will be. If a fight were to break out, she would have to be the one to cover him, with Cara protecting the imperial scum. Cara’s face hardens, Fennec knows this expression by now and can imagine the same calculations going on behind her eyes. 

_Incoming aircraft. Incoming aircraft._

The warning system’s message cuts through the tense atmosphere, with everyone’s eyes focusing on the monitor’s display. Fennec breathes out a sigh of relief as Slave-1 maneuvers through the docking area they damaged during their own arrival. 

“Our work here is done.” Fennec states. “Time to go our separate ways.”

“I saved your life,” Bo-Katan says, not even looking at her. “We had a deal. We gave you our time and resources and you couldn't even hold up your end of it? Is that what they teach your kind in those sewers you hide in?”

As before, there’s no reply. The man stands in his spot, motionless. 

For a split second, Fennec wonders if he’s still in there or if they are left with a beskar husk and it’s only a matter of time before whatever force that still holds it up dissipates completely and they’ll watch all the armor pieces fall to the ground.

The man’s silence seems to anger Bo-Katan more than anything else. She shifts her weight from one foot to another, probably to stop herself from taking a step closer, hands clenched impotently at her sides.

“This is not over,” Bo-Katan spits out. “There’s no place in this galaxy...”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the rest three times this week,” Fennec interrupts with a shrug. “The work is never ending for the likes of us.”

“And when you’re ready, you’ll find us,” Cara adds, putting her gun away. “I’m sure someone will point you in the right direction, just like with him, yeah?” she says with a smirk, forcing Fennec to choke back a laugh, and she grabs Gideon by his waist before flipping him over her shoulders like a ragdoll. She heads for the elevator.

Fennec eyes the weapon Koska is still pointing at them and, acting on instinct, decides to sheath her own blaster. Bo-Katan waves her hand, making her aide stand back.

Fennec turns to the entrance and nods at Mando. “Come on.”

His helmet moves from side to side, as if he was just now taking in the scene. Fennec takes a hold of his shoulder and gives him a push, happy to see that he doesn’t fall over, but instead takes a shaky step, then another, and, prompted by her hand on his back plate finally starts walking. 

Unable to help herself, Fennec turns back one last time and her eyes swipe over the ship’s bridge, littered with corpses and blaster marks. “Our deal assumed you would take control of this cruiser to aid your efforts in retaking Mandalore, yes?” Fennec says to Bo-Katan. “The ship is yours, Commander.” 

The elevator shuts and takes them down. With a grunt, Cara drops Gideon on the ground. The impact stirs him and he moans in pain, but does not wake up.

“You knocked him out good,” Fennec comments.

“Years of practice,” Cara quips, but her face falls once again when she looks at Mando. All the mirth gone from her voice, she asks him simply, “Are you alright?”

His head turns between the two of them, and though he doesn’t respond, Fennec takes it as a good sign that he’s comprehending their words. “I don’t know what exactly happened today, but Boba’s here now and he has a full can of bacta he’ll treat you to,” she tells him.

Apparently it’s the wrong thing to say. The Mandalorian lets out a shaky breath and, inexplicably, looks down on his hands, examining them or perhaps the beskar vambrace. His chest heaves and Fennec wonders if he has been breathing that hard all this time and she just hasn't noticed.

The elevator lets them out at the overpass. Boba is already there, his gun lowering when he sees them. “Seems like I missed the fun part,” he jokes, gesturing at Gideon and the pieces of dark troopers covering the ground.

Fennec shakes her head. “Let’s get out of here,” she tells him. 

He must hear the tension in her voice, his shoulders drop visibly and when he speaks his tone is back to the usual grim solemnity. “Where’s the kid?” Boba asks.

The Mando pushes past him, trailing around the pieces of cut up droids and Fennec has to quash the impulse to run up to him and hover in case he trips off the overpass. Instead, she settles on watching closely.

“Something happened to him in there and I’m not sure what part we took in it,” she warns Boba.

“A typical price of running into Jedi,” Boba says. At her surprised glance, he points at the scorch marks and damage they pass. “Whatever happened, it involved a lightsaber and someone who knows how to use it.”

Not knowing where to even begin on filling him in, she keeps quiet. They walk the rest of the way in silence, punctuated only by Cara grunting softly under Gideon’s weight. 

“The carbonite chamber is in the hold to the right,” Boba tells her. “Make sure to secure him so he doesn’t break during take off.”

“Thanks,” Cara answers, looks at Mando one more time and disappears in the cargo hold.

They move to the circular navigation room where Boba takes off his helmet.

“I’ll get us in the air and into hyperspace, you get him seated,” he tells her.

“I think he has a concussion,” she says. “As soon as you jump, we gotta break out that medical kit.”

“The child’s safe. You have no obligation to me anymore,” they hear suddenly. 

His voice is raspy and low, but not muffled by anything. Before she realizes what happened, she sees him.

In the middle of Slave-1, the new ruler of Mandalore drops his spear to the ground, where it joins his helmet. He unclasps his chestplate and lowers it too. Next comes off the right vambrace.

Fennec looks at Boba, looks on as he is watching him closely, his face twisted with a kind of pain she hasn't yet seen him express. 

“What happens now, vod?” Boba’s voice is barely above a whisper.

“I have to find The Armorer,” comes the answer. “She’ll find a good use for my... For the beskar.”

The words hang fraught in the air. The man looks up at the ceiling and as if only now really hearing what he just said, sways on his feet, before falling, unconscious, to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _vod- brother, friend in Mando’a_
> 
> Huge thanks to my wonderful betareader, Zee!
> 
> This is the first part of my post season 2 fix-it, born out of my frustration with the finale. Before it aired I started writing a slow-burn Din/Omera story, but then so much happened in Chapter 16 that I just can't square up with, I had to address it.  
> I still intend for Din to eventually get to Sorgen, but that might be pushed to a sequel or something. There’s a bunch of stuff I have to get through first, like making Din work through the fact that he gave his kid to a total stranger and removed his helmet in front of all these people. And reuniting him with Grogu, of course. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy it! :)


	2. Chapter 2

The pain is what wakes him up.

It’s not an unusual occurrence. He has been woken up more times than he’d like to admit by either a sucking ache of hunger, a burn of freshly opened wound or overall soreness from a recent fight. But this time his head pulses, as if someone was actively sliding a vibroblade in and out of it. The pain’s different, deeper— which is troubling, considering the kind of beating he can normally take. He stirs on a bed, and the feeling radiates through the rest of his body.

_Bed._

He’s lying on a bed, Din realizes, the first sober thought he’s capable of forming. He opens his eyes and tries to focus his vision in the darkness. It takes a moment before he recognizes the metal shapes above his head as pipes. With an excruciatingly slow pace, his senses start coming back to him. 

“Did you sleep well?” The softly spoken Mando’a is a beacon in the darkened room, focusing Din’s mind on the spot it came from: a seat at the foot of the cot he’s laying on. The man’s silhouette starts standing out against the background, as he’s leaning on the wall, hands folded in his lap. He is watching him.

Din swallows repeatedly, trying to work up saliva in his dry throat. “Where am I?” He manages to croak out.

“Slave-1. Currently parked at scrap yards of Subterrel,” Fett supplies before getting up. He appears after a moment with a metal cup he hovers above Din’s chin. “Drink.”

Din eagerly raises his head off the pillow as high as he can, which is not a lot. The cold, syrupy liquid spills off the corners of his mouth, but the little that hits his tongue and the roof of his mouth coats it in a smooth film, easing the next words out.

“Thank you,” Din says and lays his head back down on the pillow.

Fett stands above him for a moment before turning back to sit in his spot.

“You need to eat something, as soon as you’re able,” he says. “I used up all the bacta I had on you already, so unless Fennec comes back soon with supplies, the rest of your recovery will have to happen the old-fashioned way.”

Din takes a breath as deep as his ribs allow at the moment. “I’ll pay you back, as soon as I get some work,” he says. In an attempt to convince them both of how imminent the payment will be, he jolts up, trying for a sitting position. The pain in his head explodes anew and, with a moan, he drops back down, clenching his temple.

“Easy, now, pal,” Fett’s voice is sharper than Din’s used to. “You’ve been out of it for two straight days, I hardly expect you to go out and hunt down a bounty anytime soon.”

“Two… days?” Din gasps. Two days since he’s seen Grogu. Two days since _the kid’s seen him_. 

The enormity of what happened, of his failures, settles on his chest and makes a home there. The child, so lethargic and feeble, had been barely keeping his eyes open when Din walked up to him after defeating Gideon. No amount of whispered apologies has seemed to have any effect. No words exist that could provide Din salvation, not in Basic, especially not in Mando’a, for allowing a child in his care to be kidnapped and experimented on.

He still tries to find them. He tries to put together what he can tell Grogu when they meet again and comes up empty.

The soreness centers in his chest. Din wishes it would swallow him whole, so he could go back to the familiar kind of vacancy that woke him up, no thoughts, just hurting hard enough for pain to fill up his head. His body doesn’t accommodate that need and allows the ache to slowly dissipate to an underlying discomfort.

Din looks over the room and finally connects the image with the small sleeping quarters next to the hold area. With only a narrow ray of light coming from the opened door, the space is obscured in the shadows. 

“Quite a dramatic exit you did on us there.” Fett breaks the silence. “Your armor’s next to the bed, by the way.”

Din’s arm drops off the edge of his cot, searching. It lands on a top of a textile bag and he feels for the tell-tale sharp edges of metal pieces. They’re there, and have been all this time. He looks between the beskar and Fett, his only two companions; soon he’ll have to part with them both. 

He puts his arm back on the bed, running a hand over the forearm. No sign of a burn tissue or even a scar, but the spot where the darksaber heated up his vambrace reverberates with a phantom pain. Din stares at it, trying to come up with all the information he has on Subterrel and where he can go from here. “I need to find The Armorer,” he says, more to himself than Fett.

“Well, where do you think Fennec’s off to?” Fett sighs.

“You said… she’s getting supplies,” Din says.

“And one resource we’re short on is information,” Fett replies. “After we dropped Cara and Gideon off at Chandrila, we’ve been hoping around, looking for a lead. Fennec got in contact with her old informant at Eriadu. Apparently someone in this junkhole might know where to find a brother of yours.”

Din feels a pang of fear in his chest. He accepts another sip of the drink he’s offered, hesitating on a reply. “Thank you,” he settles on saying. The expression fits adequately whenever he’s in Fett’s presence. 

As if to prove so, the man adds, standing up. “I’m going to prepare you something to eat and bring it back in a moment.”

“That’s... very kind of you,” Din says, words too small to make up for his burden. “And… you don’t have to keep the lights off for my benefit.”

Fett stands above him, his built towering over the bed like an unbreakable wall. “I’m saving the fuel,” he says. It’s the kind of tender lie you use to soothe a child.

Din can’t accept it. “You already saw me, everyone did.”

“Let’s just say that what happens in Slave-1, stays in Slave-1,” Fett jokes weakly.

It’s meant to lighten the atmosphere, but it only makes Din remember what Mayfeld said to him, about pushing past uncrossable lines when left with no other choice. At the moment, he didn’t even bother with a response, bristling at the idea that the Imperial sharpshooter could know anything about adhering to rules and moral codes, and dealing with ethical fallout when life gets desperate. 

But now that conversation rings differently. 

“You know...,” Din says. “The Way of The Mandalore doesn’t punish you for taking the helmet off. You’re just not supposed to put it back on...”

 _Everybody's got their lines they don't cross until things get messy._ When they arrived on Morak, he made a first concession: he took off his armor and left it behind with an outsider, choosing the counterfeit of stormtrooper’s plastoid plates over beskar’gam. But it’s okay, he told himself, because he will not show his face. What happened next can be summed by cruel Fate laughing at him and then telling him directly and to the point: you will not bargain with me. You will give up everything you are, if you want to succeed. Your tribe, your creed, your identity.

And the most blasphemous thought occurs to him; that he’d do it all over again, just to keep Grogu safe.

Thankful for Fett’s patience, he continues. “On Morak… I had to allow my face to be scanned to access Gideon’s localization. So it’s not just you and Fennec, and everybody at Gideon’s bridge.” The words spill out like pus from an infected wound. “We blew up the base, but that data could still be out there. Gideon already knew about family, my name. Mayfeld saw me, the imperials... Before all that, I haven’t shown my face since I was a child. It’s a hard fall from that.”

Fett regards him for a while, before sitting back down. “Don’t hurt yourself by foolishly rushing to some kind of condemnation.”

Din swallows hard over the lump growing in his throat, hoping that the shadows obscure the wetness gathering at corners of his eyes. Fett’s insistence on conducting the conversation in the dark chafed at first, a biting reminder that he’s pretending nothing happened. But now it makes Din feel a little less vulnerable.

As if to answer him, Fett breaks the silence yet again. “I had to rely on myself for so long, I know that accepting help is a learned skill.”

Din chokes on a laugh. It comes out as a wet sound that barely any joy can be attributed to. So, he has become one of the wretched things in need of a rescue. “We’re even. You didn’t have to... I...”

“I did have to,” Fett cuts him off. His voice softens when he next speaks up. “Protecting each other... that’s one of the tenets, isn’t it? Would you have me stray from it?”

“...You’re a Mandalorian, then? Following the creed?”

“Whatever do you mean?” 

“I feel like you’re slipping that moniker on and off, depending on whether it helps you win an argument,” Din says. “And I feel like I ought to be offended.” His eyes have gotten used to the dark enough to see the wide smile on Fett’s face.

“I wouldn’t dare to dream of offending the Mand’alor,” Fett says.

Din’s brows furrow. He opens his mouth and closes it on a question when the answer arrives on its own. “Oh, right. That.”

At this, Fett openly laughs. The sound is almost startling; he reigns it in quickly though. “I wish I'd been there to witness your… inauguration, but…” He waves a hand in the air. After a pause, he clears his throat. “So, you have an agreement with Skywalker?”

“Who?” Din asks.

Fett tilts his head, looking at Din, the details of his expression veiled by darkness. He shifts in his seat, hesitating on an answer. Before Din can repeat himself, Fett says finally. “Fennec said the Jedi who took your foundling had a green lightsaber. If so, his name is Skywalker.”

“I see. His kind is almost extinct, as is ours. I don’t give out my own name freely, so...,” Din says, a bit too defensively to his liking. He votes to add. “My quest was to bring Grogu to Jedi and I did.”

“Great, then. You did exactly what was asked of you.”

“Grogu’s safer with him than me,” Din says firmly. His eyes narrow on a sudden realization. “You know him, Skywalker...? From work… perhaps?”

“We’re acquainted, though he’d be surprised to see me.”

“Is there more that you’d like to say?”

“Just that I wish I met the little guy,” Fett shrugs. “Maybe next time.”

“There’s not going to be next time.” Din stresses the words out. “Repeated visits would only be a selfish reminder of all that happened. Grogu’s just a baby, he’ll forget me soon enough.” His traitorous voice breaks like a twig on the last sentence.

Whether Fett notices or not, whatever he thinks or doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t share. Din can’t help but perceive it as another small act of kindness. They sit for a moment, before Fett awkwardly pats Din’s leg and gets up.

“We’ll figure out where to go from here after you’re better. I know you probably want your own place. I wish we could take you to Kuat for shopping, but our funds are more on a Lotho Minor level.” Fett jokes. 

Din nods. “Thank you.” 

“What a nice change,” Fett says with a chuckle.

“What…?” Din furrows his brows in confusion. 

“I’m just thinking out loud,” Fett says. “Mand’alor The Polite.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Din says but can’t help to mimic Fett’s smile. “I’m a king of nothing.”

“I don’t know what else to call you.” Fett says with a shrug, and instantly clarifies. “I know you don’t share your name for your own protection...”

“Din. My name is Din Djarin.” 

Fett’s quiet for longer this time. Finally, he takes the empty cup and heads for the exit. “Alright, Din. Wait up, I’ll go prepare you some food.”

***

Fett comes back fairly quickly. He helps Din to a sitting position on the cot and puts a tray over his thighs. From the bowl placed in the middle of it, steam rises off a thick, viscous liquid to Din’s face. One short question of whether Din is going to be alright to eat on his own and Fett’s gone. While walking out of the room, he switches the light on, his back turned, and closes the door.

Din blinks a few times to adjust to the brightness and looks down on his meal. As he suspected, it’s a variation on a boiled mealgrain, bland and hearty at the same time; the kind the Tribe’s medic would try to force into him when he got sick. Din grabs a spoon off the tray and stirs the slop. It’s nothing he’d eat willingly on a normal day, but now his mouth waters on smell alone. Greedily, he slurps the first spoonful too fast, almost burning his lips in the process, but the familiarity affects him like a tonic. And he’s starving, he realizes as he gobbles the next portions, unable to remember his last meal; he slows down only halfway through the bowl. His mind finally catching up, it provides him an explanation where Fett got the recipe. His father, the foundling.

Fett’s brisk tone when giving him food lingers in Din’s head and he wonders if he somehow offended the man. The question of Skywalker comes back, nagging at the edge of Din’s mind. It’s clear Fett is none too happy with his choice. There wasn’t even a choice to begin with, he did what he had to, to give Grogu a chance at a good future.

Suddenly, the porridge seems to lump up and swell in his mouth. Din swallows it with difficulty and puts the bowl down, no longer hungry, before putting the tray on the chair that Fett’s vacated. He looks around the small room, furnished only with a child’s desk and another bed opposite to him, that doesn't look like it was slept in. His eyes catch on the short laundry line that conceals the entry to an even smaller restroom. There, in front of it, hangs his own body suit and underclothes, clearly washed.

Din’s hand goes to his chest on instinct and fists in the fabric there. He looks down. The linen tunic doesn’t belong to him and it’s put on inside out. Embarrassment heats up his cheeks as his mind eagerly provides an explanation for the state of matters. Two full days, Fett said. Two days that Din has been a burden.

No more, he decides. His legs, still weak, need help to be positioned on the floor, but when he tentatively stands up, they do their job. Badly, as they shake under his weight, but they hold him up. The chill air of the ship entombs him now, calling attention to where the fabric has become moist with sweat, clinging unpleasantly to his skin. Staying close to the wall, he stumbles the short distance to the restroom, where he can relieve himself.

Next door is the bathroom, which… is a generous description. It’s just a hose, with the floor slanted below it so that the water flows into a hole in the tiles, escaping into the gray water tank below, a similar setup to the one on Razor Crest. There is at least a sink and mirror, though. Din pulls the tunic over his head and folds it as neatly as he can, before putting it on the edge of the sink, and he looks up.

The sight of the man looking back at him makes him gasp and take a step back. He furrows his brows and can barely believe it when the reflexion mimics the movement. The man in the mirror is pale, with a sickly grey tint to his skin, shining with sweat. It’s highlighted by dark circles around his eyes that make them look sunken and small. Tangled-up, greasy hair sticks to the forehead above.

 _It’s been worse_ , Din reasons. _It could be worse_. The phrase, echoed throughout the last two decades, was smoothed out by force of repetition into a benign prayer.

He only hopes that this wasn’t the face the child saw when they parted.

Din walks under the showerhead and sets the temperature just above the threshold for tolerable. The water burns away any lingering thoughts. 

***

The scalding shower has brought some dexterity to his limbs and so, putting on his clothes is not as challenging as he feared, but the stiff, thick undersuit has to be tugged into place centimeter by centimeter. It’s still not as hard as opening the bag containing his armor. 

Fett’s right, it was quite dramatic to shed it all off. 

That day they met.... His mind was too busy replaying the moment dark troopers took Grogu from him to focus on much else. But now, he pictures Fett, back in those dark robes, face scared by unknown horrors, bare. Alone, in the deserts of Tatooine, no armor to protect him. He didn’t dare to ask why it happened, but how...— that much he can imagine clearly. It’s a cautionary tale he’s heard since Mandalorians took him in. It’s a fate that has befallen many of his siblings.

To be stripped for parts. To be cracked open and peeled, bit by bit, the sacred beskar’gam taken and sold off.

Din sits down on his bed and picks his chestplate out of the bag. It’s clean and polished, so he knows now how Fett occupied himself when standing guard over Din’s bed. Perhaps that’s what is bothering Fett, that someone would willingly take armor off and proclaim to want to give it away. Din tries to come up with a reason why he said it himself. Now the idea seems like a foreign object wedged in a wound. He can’t give it up. Not all of it, at least. But it’s true that The Armorer and The Tribe could use some of his beskar. Din doesn’t need it all. 

His fingers trace over the mudhorn signet on one of his pauldrons. One of beskar’s best qualities is that it can be repurposed endlessly, melted down and reforged into something new, the past use forgotten.

He holds up his helmet. The visor is dented, from when the dark trooper bashed it in. Running his thumb over the damage, he calculates how hard it’s going to be to fix. He shakes his head, the memory bringing back a dull ache in his temples. He’s been unfocused and slow, lucky to have gotten away with his life. It wouldn’t make a difference for the kid anyway. If he managed to fail even further, Grogu would still be rescued by the Jedi, summoned by the child himself. The thought gives him a cold sense of comfort.

There are a few more items in the bag. He feels with his hand around, waiting for it to close on the darksaber’s handle. Instead, something round rolls into his palm.

The small silver knob glints in his hand under the ship’s fluorescent light.

He intended to give it to Grogu when they met again, but in the midst of all the fighting, there was not enough time. Never enough time.

He puts it in his pocket, and digs into the bag again, picking up Bo-Katan’s weapon. Now, holding it up in the light, he has a proof of what he suspected. Clearly forged by an inexperienced hand, but nonetheless the handle is made of beskar. That’s good, The Armorer will be able to smelt it down. 

Sounds of muffled conversation start him out of his thoughts. Fennec must have returned, maybe bearing news. If anyone from his Tribe survived Nevarro, then the foundlings survived too. The emergency evacuation protocols dictate to prioritise children over anything else; documents, money, books, even beskar. 

If they survived, if he can find them, he can provide. 

Din looks at the helmet. The idea of walking out of the room bear-faced and having them see plainly all his guilt and embarrassment makes him choke on his breath. _Don’t rush to hurt yourself_ , Fett’s told him. 

Selfishly, he puts the helmet on.

***

The walk through the hold of the ship and navigation room is short and he’s not weighed down by his armor, but still feels out of breath when he reaches the flight deck. The doors to it are open, revealing Fennec as she stands in front of Fett, who sits on the splat of his now sideways pilot seat. One of his hands is nearly fully inside Fennec’s abdomen, tinkering with the cybernetics.

Din stands in the doorway and clears his throat.

They both look up, but it’s Fennec who smiles. “Welcome back in the land of living,” she intones in Basic.

He nods at her, his gaze stopping on her right arm and side of her neck, smeared with blood.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mando.” Fennec waves a hand dismissively. “It’s not mine.”

“Din,” he provides. Saying it feels as right as it did with Fett. A ridiculously small price to pay for the two’s sacrifice. “You can call me Din.”

“Din?” Her smile widens, when she turns to Fett. “You said that’s like, _a lunatic_ in Mando’a? Who would name a child that?”

“No, lunatic is _dinii_ ,” Fett says, his face brightening.

“I wasn’t born to a Mandalorian family,” Din adds. Seeing the man’s smile makes the tension loosen up in his shoulders.

“Okay, I think that’s it. Fixed,” Fett states, throwing a small screwdriver into his toolkit. “Hopefully it stays like that for longer this time.”

“Hey. You have beskar and I have this.” Fennec replies, closing up her abdomen. “And this time, trust me, I’m glad I got shot in the old spot. I didn't have a chance to plan around it.”

“Really?” Fett asks. “You kind of took your time with this one. I expected you hours ago.”

She scoffs and sits down on the other seat. “Then I would bring back not only supplies, but also a group of very determined men.”

“You were followed?” Din asks.

Fennec smiles. “Up to a point. They aren’t in a condition to report on their findings now.”

“This planet has always been a dump,” Fett says. “But why would they single you out?”

“Because someone saw me with a Mandalorian when I arrived,” she says pointedly. “Beskar’s value apparently continues to rise.”

Din’s blood runs cold. He’s heard that before.

“But, I did get a hit,” Fennec says. “The twi’lek I talked to said he saw a guy in beskar last week, projected to come back tomorrow. Hired gun. Sulky type, he said. He doesn’t eat and drink anything that’s offered to him, not even if it’s free.”

Din’s breath hitches. “He follows the way...”

“Yeah. Chances are, your tribe set up shop around here somewhere. Now we just have to find them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Din finally has some time to have that identity crisis/mental breakdown he's been procrastinating on. Next chapter, The Armorer helps him through it. Chapter 4: Grogu's back with his dad! :)
> 
> Talk to me about The Mandalorian on [tumblr](https://lastwordbeforetheend.tumblr.com/).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word of warning before this chapter: Din shortly contemplates death as a possibility for himself. If you’re sensitive to this topic, then when they are in The Armorer’s forge, please skip the paragraph that starts with “Paz disappears in his peripheral vision.” I don’t plan on writing anything like that again in this story, this is just a ‘things get bad before they get better’ moment!

_Din, if you’re gonna be so slow, the Demagolka will get you!_

Demagolka is not real, Din tells himself, peeking from under his blanket. He can’t be real, can’t be, can’t be. The repetition doesn’t give him comfort because he can feel the doubt building inside him. He scoffed at Apata when she taunted him. Now, as he’s lying in the darkened sleeping quarters, the postponed fear clings to his chest and doesn’t want to let go. The long shadows in the corners, cast by moonlight, seem to grow the longer he looks at them and he’s sure that if he looks long enough, they’ll start to move.

There’s a clang somewhere in the compound and Din freezes, clenching his blanket. Is this it? Did the Demagolka come for him, after all? 

Din has to know, has to find out. If the flesh sculptor is coming, Din has to be prepared. He gets up from his bed and looks around; the room is silent safe only for the soft breathing of other children. Something is out there and no one seems to be the wiser.

Din sneaks past the beds of other kids and goes out into the L-shaped corridor connecting the sleeping quarters with the main hall. He shivers instantly, wrapping his arms around his torso. The cob walls used to hold heat well when he first arrived, but recently the weather turned and now the air is wet and cold. The stone floor feels especially biting on his bare feet. He forwent putting on his shoes; the clap clap clap of wooden clogs could only alert... the something... to his presence.

He slows down when he passes the entrance to the forge, where The Armorer spends her days. Heat radiates from inside, coming from the enormous hearth in the middle, and Din almost walks right in, beckoned by the warmth.

He moves forward. He can’t risk missing it.

_Thunk!_

There it is, again, but closer. Sounds are clearer now. Footsteps, crackle of leather and clattering of metal.

Din presses himself to the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. He can hear it now, stomping heavily in the darkness. Soon he’ll turn a corner and lock eyes with the monster. He’s just waiting for the flash of silver hair and silver teeth, a crinkle of white silk robes. The kids say that Demagolka has fingers like sun-bleached bones, thin and pale, but when Din thinks of the arm stretching out to get him, he hears metallic wiring.

He peaks into the perpendicular corridor and hides back instantly. 

Something’s there, in the darkness.

The footsteps slow down and then there’s a moment of silence. Din can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he thinks of the places he could hide. He realizes in panic that they’re all far away, too far to run to. Even the entrance to the forge glows distant.

“What are you doing here?” The commanding sound of Mando’a makes Din jump. Somehow the man came up from around the corner and materialized behind him.

Din lets out a relieved sigh. It’s not demagolka, it’s one of The Mandalorians. He has to really bend his neck to look up at the visor. The man is tall and wide as a mountain; clad in the precious beskar. Din narrows his eyes at the green stripes on his helmet, realizing that he knows him. Only, he doesn’t live here. Xaz said he lives in space, flies his own ship round and round this planet to see if we’re safe. What does green stand for, again? He was supposed to learn the meanings of armor paint. But it’s so hard to remember, because Din doesn’t understand why and how color can speak of one’s past and virtues.

“And barefoot, too. Do you want to catch a cold?” The man speaks again. 

Din thinks through what he can say. The truth, that he was out here looking for demagolka, suddenly seems silly. He’s too big to believe in monsters. What’s the word for ‘searching’ again? Mandalorians try to teach him many things here and not everything sticks. He’s expected to speak Mando’a. Din tries and tries to shape his mouth around the foreign words and they don’t come out right and he ends up stuttering his way through sentences others scream out on a playground. When The Teacher speaks Mando’a it sounds like a song. It makes him feel so embarrassed for himself he can’t even look them in the eyes sometimes. And they say ‘don't worry, ad’ika, take your time’ but if the demagolka might come for him, then there’s no time!

The Mandalorian sighs and kneels down in front of him. Still, he has to bend his back to get his visor on Din’s eye level, stifling a shudder after that movement.

He’s probably cold too, Din thinks. He shifts his weight to his heels to give his freezing toes a bit of respite.

“Your name’s Din, right, kid?” The Mandalorian asks in Basic. It sounds weird out of his mouth, he doesn’t say it the melodic way everyone at Din’s village would.

“Yeah,” Din answers.

“Well, Din, why are you here all alone?”

It’s not his fault, so he states it that way. “Apata said demagolka is real.”

The man groans, his head bending down a bit. “Okay, I see what happened. Now, let’s get you back to bed.”

He reaches out his arms and waits for Din to enter the embrace. The cold floor is left behind when Din is picked up and held, so high, he could touch the ceiling if he really stretched his arms.

The other adults seem to really like this man; they always talk in excited whispers when he comes round. But they don’t really talk with him. Din only ever sees him talk with The Armorer. So, if he were to ask a stupid question… others probably won’t find out. This might actually be the only chance to set the record straight.

“Is he? Real, I mean?” Din shoots.

“Demagolka? The tale is based on a life of a real man, yes,” the Mandalorian says.

Din gasps. “So it’s all true, what they say?”

“Well, I don’t know what version of this story you kids are scaring each other with nowadays,” the man says. “But, millennia ago, under Mand’alor The Ultimate’s rule, Demagol worked as a scientist. He bec—”

“He worked _for_ The Mand’alor? That can’t be true,” Din exclaims.

The man’s helmet tilts toward Din. “Even great leaders can exhibit poor judgement.”

“And then what happened?”

“Demagol was weak-minded. He became obsessed with power and it drove him to experiment on people, even children.”

The vision of mechanical hands holding scalpels and syringes makes Din instinctively press closer to the Mandalorian, ignoring how the edges of his armor dig into his flesh. He gets a whiff of a smell and winces. It’s a mix of sweat and something copper, that makes Din think back to the time he bumped his nose.

“What you should be getting out of that story though,” The Mandalorian says, “is that a brave warrior hunted him down and killed him. Same would happen if Demagol was alive today. As it always should be.”

“You kill many men like that?” Din asks.

The Mandalorian is quiet for a moment, perhaps because they’re passing the forge and he doesn’t want to alert The Armorer either.

“Not enough of them,” he says finally, then adds. “When you swear your Creed, you’ll be able to go out and protect foundlings, too. And beskar will protect you.”

“They won’t trust me with beskar,” Din says darkly. 

“I think they will.”

“Then you’re dumb,” Din says, suddenly filled with righteous anger, amplified only by the hearty chuckle he gets in response. He hates when adults lie to him. Why must they lie? He knows where he stands. He’s the weakest and the scrawniest of the bunch. He can’t even keep the stupid armor colors straight and he is yet to complete a full set of daily trainings that the other kids breeze through. 

No one’s wasting any beskar on _him_.

“I’m actually very smart, you little womp rat, so when I say it’ll happen, you better believe it.” The man laughs, but quiets when they reach the sleeping quarters. He carries Din through the room, looking for the empty bed, and when he speaks again it's in a whisper to not wake the other children up. 

“You have your whole life ahead of you, kid. You’ll do many incredible things, you’ll make The Tribe proud.” He sets him down on the bed and sits at the end of it. 

Din realizes suddenly that he’s actually very tired. He drops on his pillow, rubbing his eyes. He wants to pull the blanket up, but the man is sitting on it, staring into the room. Din tugs at it harder to give the man a hint. The Mandalorian looks down as if startled out of his thoughts and gets up. Din pulls the material up to his cheeks, his eyes already closing.

“You know,” the man says, “I remember how hard the first year can get.”

Din opens his eyes at the sound of beskar clanking against beskar and watches in confusion as the man pulls something around his head. It’s a thin strap of leather with some necklace hanging off of it.

“Here, take this.”

Din reaches and picks up the object. His eyes blink, more awake. It’s beskar. A beautiful figurine of a mythosaur, the same as in the forge, but tiny in comparison.

“Did The Armorer make this?” Din asks, unsure if he can keep it.

“An Armorer did. A long time ago. And now it’s yours.”

“Cool, thanks,” Din says and buries himself in the blanket once more, holding the figurine to his chest.

When he wakes up, the man is no longer at the compound: he’s left for ‘a job’, someone tells him. Din shows the figurine to the other kids and they can barely believe he’s got it! He wears it under his tunic everyday and when he has a problem with something, he fists his hand in the fabric around it, feeling the familiar edges.

He thinks he has to thank the man properly the next time he sees him. 

Din waits, but the man doesn’t come back and soon, they all have to move.

***

There’s a clanging sound and Din’s hand goes to his side before he is even fully awake. It clenches on air; there’s no blaster, and that wakes him up more than anything could. He jolts up on the bed and groans in pain, hand instinctively going up to his helmet as a headache explodes at his temples. It's only then that his foggy brain catches onto his new situation: Slave-1, Fett, he shares a space with other people, has slept without the armor, people make noise. 

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Fett says, clad in his usual robes, as he puts his armor pieces on his already made bed, before he sits down on it. Even without the added bulk of armor, his wide frame is formidable.

Din shifts to lean on the ship’s wall, his helmet clanking against it. “Looks like it’s time to get up anyway.”

Fett grunts, non-committal, and starts assembling his beskar’gam, first stretching out his arms over his head to pull the textile that his chest pieces are attached to over his head. His legs spread out as he does it and Din suddenly feels the need to concern himself with folding his own blanket. 

He gets up, glances at the empty cot on the ground and asks. “Where’s Fennec?”

“Ah, she said something about being able to endure one man snoring, but not two of them and left to sleep in the cockpit,” Fett says, correcting how the chestplate lies. “Go prepare some food for yourself. When I’m done, I’ll vacate this room so you can eat.”

He nods in agreement and walks to the front of the ship, where he finds Fennec, already dressed.

She’s sitting on the back of the pilot seat, her long black hair hanging off on one side of her head while she works a red string from the top of it. Her fingers knit it expertly, effortlessly as it would seem, but Din can imagine the intricate pattern took a long time to master.

“Hi,” she smiles.

Din nods. “Hey… I… I’ve been wondering. If the man you got intel on is a real Mandalorian… if it’s the Mandalorian I’m hoping to find… we should discuss how we approach him.”

“I’ve been thinking about it as well,” Fennec says. “He’s supposed to come back because of a job, some kind of delivery. If two other Mandos and a sharpshooter roll into town, we might interrupt the proceedings.”

“Exactly. Or worse, alert the wrong people that there’s a covert nearby. At the same time, I don’t think he’s going to trust you enough to let you lead him here.”

“Maybe I won’t wait for his permission to escort him,” Fennec says lightly, finishing one of her braids. She ties it off, ignoring Din’s stare and starts working on the other side. “Okay then, what do you propose? You can’t go out there with a welcoming party and I can’t rely on him believing my word alone.”

“I don’t know. Tell him Din Djarin is with you, for starters.” He moves to rest on the other seat. “That should be an opening for sure.”

“You guys are close?” Fennec asks.

“No.” Din can’t stop the derisive snort. “But it should signal to him that you do actually know me. Oh, also…” He glances at her. “How much Mando’a did Fett teach you?”

Fennec considers, her fingers now dancing at the end of her second braid. “Some. I think I will be able to get the general idea across.”

“Good,” Din says. “Use it. Gain his trust.”

“Don’t worry, Din,” Fennec says. “I can be very personable.”

After she leaves, Din eats his breakfast quickly and returns to the cockpit. Fett knew where and how to position his ship: he picked a slope right at the edge of the city. From the height of the cockpit, they can watch the rooftops of some of the buildings and even peek into the nearest street.

“It’s been too long,” Din tells Fett, pacing in the small room.

Fett grunts in annoyance. “Worrying won’t make the time go faster. Find yourself something to do, if you can’t sit still. Or I’ll find it for you.”

He shoots him a glare. “This might be my only chance to reconcile with my Tribe.”

“Have a little faith, Mandalorian,” Fett says with a smile.

Din rolls the next words in his mouth, but decides to swallow them instead. “If she’s not back in an hour, I’m going out,” he informs him.

Whatever Fett was going to say to that is interrupted by a rattle of gunfire. Din steps to the front of the cockpit, his eyes glued to the window. There are flashes of red, bursting against the buildings in the city center. Not long after the fighting starts, they see a crack of light and smoke of a small explosion the bang of which reaches them in a second.

“I’m going in,” Din decides.

“You are not,” Fett grabs his arm.

Din looks down on the hand clasped on his vambrace until it’s released.

“It’s going to be fine. Just you wait,” Fett says.

And after a fraught few minutes, Fennec appears at the edge of the city, trailed by a man in heavy infantry-type Mandalorian armor. Din nearly runs to the hull, waiting by the opening ramp for Fett to catch up. They watch as the two approach.

The man’s armor is different, but still mostly blue. Blue means reliability. As they get closer, Din can discern a grey pattern on the helmet. _Mourning a lost love._ His heart seizes, knowing now who must have been one of the fallen in Nevarro.

The pair walks most of the distance to the ship before the man stops. Fennec turns to him, they exchange words and she starts gesticulating wildly before turning on her heel and stamping towards Slave-1.

Despite the heavy fighting that must have taken place, she looks unscathed, save for a few strands of hair out of place and a very stormy expression. As she walks up the ramp, she calls out. “Hey, Din? Your pal is an asshole.”

Somehow it works more to convince him that it’s Paz than the blue armor did. “What did he do?” he asks.

Fennec’s frown deepens. “Throughout the whole ordeal he refused to speak Basic aside from correcting my grammar.”

Fett snorts but raises his hands in surrender after the scowl Fennec sends his way. “Well, Mando’a is a difficult language...”

Fennec grunts in annoyance and pushes past them without another word.

Din looks at Fett and sighs. “I have to do this alone.”

“I know,” Fett tells him. “I'll be here when you come back.”

***

Vizsla’s ship is small but pre-imperial, tough to pin down much like Razor Crest was. It’s a good choice. The interior is neat and well organized. Din can hardly find anything to nitpick. He can hardly find a reason to start a conversation, so they spend most of the flight in silence. It’s not the easy kind, his confession weighs on him and the fact that Paz agreed to take him to The Armorer after learning that Din broke the Creed hangs over his head.

Finally, he risks a question. “What happened back there, on Subterrel? Fennec interrupted your job?” 

“She saved my life,” Paz says casually.

They fall into silence again and Din cannot bear it. “You can say it, you know.”

“What are you on about?” Paz asks, and Din is sure he just wants to hear him spell it out.

“You called me a coward for much less before. And now you’re hosting me on your ship, to be brought into The Tribe again after straying from The Way. I’m sure you’re brimming with unspoken commentary.”

Paz lets out a humourless laugh. “Fulfilling your position at the covert was… challenging. Especially in the first weeks. I had to do things, run jobs I would never have agreed to. So, I can actually understand the complexity. ”

Paz doesn’t say anything else and Din doesn’t prod anymore. The ship enters the atmosphere of a barren, rocky planet. It appears almost lifeless, save for a few scattered boroughs. They fly into a mountainous region before docking in a small, secluded valley where they disembark.

Paz leads him into a cave. They walk through a slippery passage that opens to a vaulted area with an opening in the roof. Din can see the sky through it. The light is filtered through the leaves of various plants, growing in rows, suspended one under the other. He stops in his tracks, marveling at the display. At first glance, he can recognize only tomatoes and a few kinds of herbs. The rows of the vertical garden end about a meter above ground, where the plants least requiring sun are planted. In the circle of light on the ground, a small girl, maybe 5 years old is throwing fodder to a herd of chickens. One of them, completely disinterested in grain, is trying its hardest to jump high enough to reach the lowest plants and peck at them.

Din stares, unable to move for the moment. Before the sewers on Nevarro, before Hapes and Ilum and planets the names of which he doesn’t remember anymore, there was a place like this. Not the same, but something like it. He remembers feeding hens too.

“Ritu, don’t pour out too much, it gets moldy when left uneaten,” Paz tells the girl. 

She cocks her head, looking back at Din and doesn’t say anything.

He notices then: he’s an interloper. Not wanting to scare her, he just nods at her and threads slowly after Paz, who has disappeared in one of the two passages leading deeper into the mountain. Boisterous voices can be heard from one of them, but Din enters the one that’s quiet and dark as night.

Din runs his hand over the uneven surface of the wall as he walks, feeling the ridges and cracks even though his leather gloves. It’s hard to say if it was naturally carved by some prehistoric movements or hacked into shape by living beings.

“How did you know to come here?” he asks, ducking his head under a spot when the roof of the tunnel lowers.

“The Armorer did.”

They turn a corner and Din is momentarily hit with a wave of hot air as the passage opens into a cave. It even smells the same, he thinks and closes his eyes. How ridiculous of him to focus on that detail. But it is so familiar and yet so obscenely foreign.

It feels like coming home. Not exactly coming home, but rediscovering the very concept of a place where you belong the moment you step over the threshold. The forge is built in a similar manner as the one in the covert on Nevarro, utilizing a naturally occurring stream of lava to create a circular hearth in the middle of the workshop. Except, here it seems to double as The Armorer’s quarters, he thinks, eyes focusing on the narrow bench in the corner that hosts a neatly folded duvet.

It’s quiet, save for the roar of the fire in the hearth’s engine.

She is standing behind it, hands resting on the edge, gazing into the inferno. Blue flames licking the air above the fire refract the light, blurring Her image and casting it in a cold tint, the highlights standing out against the gold of Her beskar’gam. The dent on the side of Din’s visor warps this picture further.

Din looks at Paz, who’s watching him. 

He slides his spear out of its sling on his back and leaves it leaning against the wall. There’s a short stand in front of the hearth, with pads lying on both sides. Din kneels down on the pad closer to the entrance, waiting for Her to join him on the other side of the table. Long minutes pass, the blue glow of the fire dances in a hundred glints over his unpainted armor. He tries to follow the light, losing himself in the small task rather than breaking the silence.

“I’m glad you returned to us,” The Armorer says.

“I’m glad to have found you alive,” Din says, so quietly he’s not sure if She even can hear him over the fire. The pile of armor on Nevarro flashes before his eyes; void and lifeless.

He clears his throat and speaks up. “I’m compromised.”

“Then your very presence here is a danger to us all,” The Armorer says. “The Din Djarin I knew wouldn’t risk our Tribe’s safety this way.” 

Behind the cyan fog, Din sees her visor dip; she’s looking into the hearth. He wonders how many were already buried here; and if he’ll join them. There was no place in the sewers of Nevarro to bury their fallen _vods_ , nowhere but in the cleansing chasm of fire. And bury them She did— first thing, before securing beskar or Her own escape; choosing to procure the continuation of their existence in the universe over anything else. He can imagine Her pushing their bodies over the edge of the hearth, melting the organic vessels down one by one, and the thought allows him some respite from the cold truth of their absence. They are not here and they are not gone; united into _manda_ , the oversoul, their consciousness disintegrating into a blend of all who were before and who will come after us.

Paz disappears in his peripheral vision. Din bows his head, exposing the soft part of his undersuit between the helmet and backplate. Paz should know if he goes in fast, straight in the medulla, Din won’t even feel it. He stops himself short of wishing for it. Mandalorians taught him to think of death with acceptance, not anticipation. But the pull is there, the promise of erasure of all individual thought particularly soothing. Din can feel Paz’s uneasy presence behind him and he wonders if the man already unsheathed his vibroknife. 

He opens his mouth to say why he came here, to offer beskar, but suddenly Paz speaks up.

“He’s here for guidance.”

Din’s head snaps up in surprise. He doesn't counter.

The Armorer tilts her helmet in consideration, then moves around the hearth until She reaches Din. She kneels opposite of him; like so many times before their eyes meet behind their visors. Only this time, She doesn’t speak for a long while.

Finally, Din hears, “Tell me what happened.”

He shifts in his seat under the weight of the question. First thing on his mind, _I took off my helmet_ , can hardly push its way up his throat yet, but to explain everything that happened seems no easier. He thinks on how to distill the answer, how not to waste Her time with details, and all he can boil it down to is, “I delivered him.”

“Then, by Creed, you fulfilled your duty,” She says.

Din shakes his head at Her choice of words. _Creed._ He takes a deep breath, ready to confess. “There was a cost,” he says.

“No one but our Tribe knows more acutely the cost of your foundling’s safety,” She reminds him.

Din swallows hard, his own pain suddenly seeming tiny in comparison to what he put all of them through. “This child is special,” he tries to explain.

“They all are special,” The Armorer corrects him gently. 

He knows it to be true. He agrees with her. Of course, he does.

He wants to protest.

That moment of hesitation is enough. The Armorer angles her head left, her eyes resting on Din’s pauldron. “Though perhaps this one has left a deeper mark than you’re willing to admit.”

“No. You were right,” Din says. He closes his eyes, focusing on getting the words out. “I fulfilled my quest, as this is the way. The child is back with his kind. My wish now is to provide for Tribe’s foundlings. You can use my beskar’gam for them. I don’t.... need a full cuirass.”

The Armorer leans back, straightening and when She speaks Her voice is cold and hard as a stone. “And why would I do that?” 

He swallows all the excuses and focuses on the facts. “I shouldn’t be wearing it.”

“You removed your helmet.” 

“Yes,” he says and that’s bad enough. Still, he has to add. “In front of Imperials. They have a scan of my face. One of their leaders knows my identity too.” No excuses, he promised himself, but the words spill out anyway. “I did it to save the kid.”

“I see.” The Armorer says. There’s a long pause before Her vocoder picks up something akin to a scoff. “You think you can make up for it by shedding your skin. You need my blessing to start anew?”

“No, I...” Din rushes to say and stops when words fail him. He clenches his hands into fists on his knees. “Beskar belongs with someone worthy of it.”

The Armorer doesn’t say anything to that and the silence feels worse than a punch in the gut.

“I also have this... weapon.” Din says and unhooks the darksaber from his belt. He lays it down on the table. “It can extend into a sword capable of slashing through anything, aside from...”

“...beskar,” Paz cuts in, startling him. He looks as the man walks up to them and picks up the handle. The weapon activates, its black blade glowing with a white boundary. It sings a high note as Paz holds it up.

“You’ve known about it?” Din asks in surprise.

“Something like it,” Paz says quietly, turning the blade off to inspect the handle closer. “I heard a story when I was a little boy, about a powerful sword, made by one of my ancestors,” he says. “A great Mand’alor who was plagued by some mysterious ailment, filling their head with other people’s thoughts, yielding them to distraction and paranoia. The darksaber helped Tarre Vizsla focus and control their mind.”

“The darksaber helped, but it was the Jedi who trained them to control it,” The Armorer states.

Din blinks, scarcely believing it. “A Mand’alor was… one of the Jedi?” 

“Songs thousands of years old spare no details about the brutal conflict between us and the sorcerers. Most of our armor was designed to repel the Jedi's attacks,” She adds. “Tarre was born into that period, exhibiting the same powers we saw on battlefields.”

“What happened to them then?” Din asks.

“A decision was made,” The Armorer says, her visor straight on Din. “Not a light one at all. Giving up your child to be taken in by strangers—enemies—because you know that’s good for them in the long run. It takes a special blend of desperation and love.”

“So that’s why it’s so unique,” Paz says, turning the darksaber back on and pressing it against his vambrace to test it. Satisfied, he turns it off and puts it back on the table “Tarre was able to combine their teachings with our technology.”

“Because they could find balance while being pulled by opposing forces.” The Armorer clarifies. “They came back to their clan and used this weapon to achieve many great things, most forgotten by history, but if the songs are to be believed, their reign was one of unification and harmony. And when time came to become one with _manda_ , Tarre decided to leave the darksaber with Jedi.”

“But we liberated it,” Paz says empathetically. 

The Armorer doesn’t answer that.

Din looks down at the darksaber. He thinks about Bo-Katan, her obsessive search for the object and her conviction that it gives her the deeds to a dead planet. He knows where the darksaber’s story goes next and it doesn’t have a good ending. Whatever unity it brought when wielded by Tarre is long gone, the homeworld they fought for destroyed. Becoming a symbol of Mand’alor have just granted the darksaber the means to flare up conflict and power-grabs from within. 

“Here's the thing about this story,” The Armorer speaks, making Din look back up at Her. “Tarre Vizsla came back to us. Interesting, how after a millennium, their weapon fell into possession of Clan Mudhorn, now separated by circumstances similar to Tarre’s family.”

Din suspects the words are meant to be kind, but they cut him instead. He takes a few deep breaths and makes sure to release them slowly enough to not be heard, so that no one can notice how much he needs to slow down his heartbeat. “There’s no such a thing as Clan Mudhorn.” 

“You still have your signet...” The Armorer starts.

“What do I have?” Din cuts Her off, shifting uncomfortably on his pad. “I don’t even have a ship to come here on. And I wouldn’t anyway. There’s something that you’ve been avoiding saying since I arrived: I cannot ever come back here, for a risk of bringing along Imperials or people who are after this weapon. And you keep bringing _him_ up, talking as if he can come back.” Din’s voice raises in volume and he can make out Paz staring at him. To mitigate the disrespect, he tries to explain. “His species ages differently. I’m not going to be alive by the time he grows up.”

“I see.”

The simple acknowledgement is enough to choke him up. “I have no clan, no tribe, no creed, nothing, I’m- I’m…”

“Nothing?” She supplies.

The sharp inhale is too loud too to hide this time. Din shudders, his eyes burning. He shuts them tightly and senses, more than hears, the Armorer move. 

She comes up to him, close. There's pressure at the edge of his helmet and Din opens his eyes to see Her gloved hand. Sure that She’ll take the helmet off, he readies for it, but instead feels a gentle pull as if She wants him to face her. He does.

Towering above him, She’s like a statue, the blue glow from the fire dancing across Her gold armor. Gold means vengeance. 

“The Jedi annihilated many of our kind,” The Armorer tells him. “But you’re the first Mandalorian I know of whom they undid by means of love.” 

Din sways at that, only by leaning into Her hold is he capable to keep upright. His mind fills with Tarre, Grogu, the darksaber and the word She keeps using, _love_.

“Are you mocking my transgressions?”

“No. Just the idea that your love for this foundling is anything but holy,” She says. “And that any transgression committed in the name of it could ever unravel you.”

At that, the grounding hold of Her hand disappears from his helmet. Din leans forward, slumping in his seat.

She walks around him to the wall displaying her tools of trade. She looks them over and picks a few he hasn’t seen used in a long time.

“You say you have nothing.” 

Din clenches his jaw. “All I have left is apparently a claim to an inhospitable planet I never stepped a foot on.”

“The whole galaxy is inhospitable to us,” The Armorer says. She turns to the hearth, leaving Her tools on its edge, before she goes to pick up the tray used for melting down alloy.

“The reason why beskar chafes you, has to do with where you obtained it, does it not?” She asks.

“When I saw the kid for the first time, I made a choice that cost our people their lives. I should have never accepted the payment. I should have never given him up. I should not have gotten you involved.”

“Whether you made that choice or were maneuvered into it, it’s hard to say.” She picks up several beskar inglots from one of the shelves and delicately places them one by one on the tray. 

They lack the imperial stamp, Din notices. They were made of his siblings who had fallen on Nevarro. 

“What we do to fulfil our duties under conditions of such hostility can barely be considered a choice. You deem yourself unworthy of wearing what I forged for you, but the truth is, beskar does not care for your heartache,” The Armorer says. “It was here when we were but atoms orbiting the stars and it will be here to witness the galaxy heave its last breath. An indestructible constant.” She takes a hold of the tray with her tongs and puts it into the fire. “The Mandalorians were only blessed to be its keepers for the narrow window of time when sentient species exist alongside it.”

Din releases a breath he didn’t notice he was holding. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the metal knob. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” he says, turning it between his fingers.

“I know what I’m supposed to do,” She replies. “Your helmet is damaged. I shall craft a new one.” 

Paz nods at him and slips out of the room as The Armorer pulls the now pliable material out of the fire. She gets to work on it, pouring the liquid into the mold and driving the powerful press to pummel it into place as it seizes.

The ritual lasts for hours. Din waits and waits until he can barely feel his legs underneath him, until the hand he clenches on the knob goes numb. When it’s done, She puts the new helmet on the table in front of him, next to the darksaber.

“Do not forget your spear. You’ll need it,” She states with firm certainty, and adds. “It’s true that you cannot be a part of our Tribe anymore. But if you call on us, we’ll come. ”

With that, she leaves him in the forge alone.

***

“...besides, try not to get serviced on Trask or Mon Calamari, if you can avoid it,” Din says, walking down the ramp of Paz's ship. Fennec and Fett are already waiting for them at the bottom. “Their prices are steep and don’t correspond to the quality of their work.”

Paz grunts something in response and Din is pretty sure it’s accompanied by an eye-roll. 

“There’s a good mechanic named Peli Motto on Tatooine, Hangar 3-5 at the Mos Eisley spaceport,” Din adds. “But don’t tell her I sent you. She’d probably find a way to charge you extra...”

“Is that all?” Paz asks. “Because so far your advice can be boiled down to ‘I let people rip me off whenever I went’.”

Din stops at the base of the ship and turns to the other man, looking him over. 

Under his stare, Paz breaks the silence. “I thank you, though,” he nods solemnly. “I’ll treasure all you taught me and vow not to be as crink as you at properly maintaining my ship.”

The little jab doesn't hurt Din as much as Paz probably intends. What hurts more is the possibility that there’s something he could teach Paz, some experience he could share but didn’t, something to make a difference in the life of The Tribe’s provider. Maybe even save it.

He decides not to voice this concern. “I know you’ll do well. As you have been so far.”

Paz extends his arm. Din clasps onto it, pressing their forearms together in the traditional handshake, each grabbing the other’s elbow. As he tries to pull back, Paz holds him tighter.

“I know She told you this, but it bears repeating. If you’ll need us, we’ll come to you.”

Din tries to stay very still, but the small tremor that runs down his spine betrays him. “I appreciate it,” he says hoarsely.

Their arms release each other. Paz gives Fett and Fennec a curt nod and turns back inside. 

After the roar of his engine raises enough to not be a bother, Fennec asks. “Did you get what you needed?”

Din looks between the two of them, his right hand absent-mindedly shifting to rest on the darksaber’s handle at his side. “Yes, I think so.”

“Helmet’s fixed, I see.” Fett comments.

“It’s actually a new one,” Din says. “Seems to have a few more tricks too.”

“So you went there to give your beskar back and they updated it for you?” Fennec snorts and nudges Fett with her elbow. “I need to find me Mandalorians like that.”

Fett scoffs, but it’s mitigated by the smile on his face. “Your ride just left. Should we signal him to come back?” 

“On second thought, I’m good right where I am.”

Din looks between them, feeling like he’s trespassing. He clears his throat. “I have to find some work and pay you back, for all the bacta, fuel and your time. There’s a Guild station on Eriadu from what I remember, so if you can drop me off there...”

Fennec looks at him, eyebrows raising slightly, and she glances at Fett. “Actually, Boba and I have a little project on Tatooine we’d like to get underway.” 

“Yeah,” Fett says. “Nothing too serious, but if it goes well, I will have some well-paying jobs for you to run. Can’t be sure when that’s going to be though...”

“Could be a week, two weeks from now even. Maybe more,” Fennec adds.

“Well, you should let me know as soon as you’ll need me,” Din says.

“That I’ll do.” Fett nods. “But since the date is uncertain, I’m gonna need you to stay at the ready and not take on other jobs while waiting. Can I count on you?”

“Yes...” Din says tentatively, looking between the two stoic faces.

“Good. Then, taking into account your lost wages in the upcoming two weeks, I consider us even as of now,” Fett says and extends his hand.

Din clasps the man's arm, shaking his head in disbelief. When she shakes Fennec’s hand, a small smile slips on her lips.

The realization of what has just happened is finally sinking in; he has been manoeuvred into a long vacation with a promise of high paying jobs lined up afterwards, as his debt for wasting the pair’s resources in the last days is already forgiven. All done in the most inoffensive way possible.

“Thank you,” he tells them both.

“So, since you have some time to kill now, you’re gonna need a place to lay low,” Fennec says. “Where do you want to go?”

Din sighs. He doesn’t have to think long, his mind supplies him with a location almost instantly: the farmer’s planet. Sorgan, sleepy Sorgan, and the few weeks when the child and he felt content and safe. It all feels like a ghost of a memory against the cacophony of events that have befallen him in the last months. Is it months or centuries since he has last seen her? _Omera_. Despite all the time that passed, she comes back to him. Her smile, her hair, her hand on his forearm.

He faces them. “Please, drop me off on Nevarro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Demagolka” is Mando’a for “someone who commits atrocities, a real-life monster, a war criminal” and it’s somewhat of a boogie-man in the mandalorian culture. It comes from the Legends so I don’t know if it’s strictly canon, but I just love the idea that for Mandalorians, who put so much importance on caring for children -”foundlings are the future”- a man who hurts children is the purest form of evil. The fact that Demagol was known for experimenting on people, like Gideon, adds an interesting parallel here.
> 
> Green paint on the armor stands for ‘duty’, in case you’re wondering.
> 
> Phew, this was a very difficult chapter to write for me! Please, tell me what you think of it, even if you don’t like it! I’m going to take a short break from writing, so I suppose the next chapter won’t appear sooner than in two weeks, at earliest.
> 
> But stay tuned, because in Chapter 4 Leia gives Din a call :).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, I'm running a [gen gift exchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/noromo_mando_gift_exchange/profile) in the Mandalorian fandom! It's open for prompts about all characters who appeared on the show, but we're keeping things SFW and platonic. If you like creating gen!fic and art and have a prompt that'd you like to see filled, join in and tell your friends to do so too! There are some really cool requests submitted already so I think this is going to be lots of fun. :) Sign-ups are open for the next 2 weeks!

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_Din, hi! Greef said you’re staying on Nevarro but I didn’t get a holo back from you so I’m just following up. I’m sorry I can’t be there at the moment. This Gideon thing is just… out of control. Oh, I wish you’d seen his face in carbonite, it’s like, AHHH. Not dignified, not at all. They’re trying to make me a witness at the trial. You know I’d rather shave a bantha with a pair of dull scissors than stay here on Coruscant any longer than absolutely necessary. I just- I need to make sure this is done properly. Gideon must have had a plan in case of a capture, I know it. I just have no idea what it was. All these smooth-talking politicians here… they have no idea what they’re doing. Gah, I’m jumping in the first quarry back. You just hold on, okay? And let me know how you are doing._

_**> >end_of_message / reply_save_or_delete? / message_deleted>>** _

_***_

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_Heeyy, Mandooo. I don’t know when you’re going to get this message… I came around your room, but no one answered the door. So, maybe you’re out today. Listen… Cara’s really riding me about checking up on you. I told her what the hotel’s owner has told me; your room receives regular meal deliveries, so you’re… alive. That should hold her off for a moment. Probably not for long. I told her, you must have a nice companion in there to keep you occupied. She said- hehehe, well. Apparently, she doesn’t have a lot of faith in your... interpersonal skills. You just have fun, however long you need. But come down to the cantina later. Don’t you worry about your credit, I just wanna see your bucket of a face, you know? We don’t even have to talk or anything._

_**> >end_of_message / reply_save_or_delete? / message_deleted>>** _

_***_

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_Hey, Din? What’s going on? Where have you been this past week? Why aren’t you responding to anyone? Are you even still on Nevarro? Greef seems convinced you are, but then why won’t you get back to him? Ugh, I’m still stuck here on Coruscant, but I’ll try to get back as soon as possible. I just want to know if you’re okay. I mean, I guess that you’re not… But since you’re so determined to ignore me, if you keep up this ghost act, I’m gonna sic Fennec and Fett on you. Eh, please, just… send back a holo. Fifteen seconds, talk about the fucking weather, I don’t care._

_**> >end_of_message / reply_save_or_delete? / message_deleted>>** _

_***_

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_Hello, Din. Fennec received quite a frantic message from Cara Dune regarding your silence. She’s worried, we- we are worried. I suppose we should have taken you with us to Tatooine, but at the time I thought it best to allow you a calm recovery. I guess I’m not getting smarter with age. I should know, more than anyone, that the one thing even the best beroyas have trouble finding is a peace of mind. And that being allowed to fester restlessly in your own thoughts will not grant you calm, but rather push you into numbness. I do not have a job for you yet. I’ll let you know when that changes. We’re ready to move in on our target, so… soon, perhaps. But, you know, you can come to Tatooine already, if you can get a ride. You can… I will… Take care of yourself, Din._

_**> >end_of_message / reply_save_or_delete? / reply_save_or_delete? / reply_save_or_delete? / message_deleted >>** _

_***_

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_Mando. This time I’m sure you just didn’t open the door. Kind of a rude way to treat an old friend. Especially since I have a bounty for you to run. I know, you said you don’t take on any jobs at the moment, but this one, oooh, you’ll like it, I guarantee it. Quick, easy and local: this rich guy’s business partner rocked the boat a bit too much, the client just wants someone to give him a stern talking to. It pays well! Just… come down to the cantina and I’ll give you the puck. I… Listen, I know you miss him, I miss the littl-_

_**> >message_paused / resume_save_or_delete? / message_deleted>>** _

_***_

_**> >new_hologram>>** _

_I was informed that this is the proper channel, although I’m not entirely sure to whom I am addressing this message. My name’s General Leia Organa Solo, I’m the New Republic’s Minister of State. I’m told that you’re the Mandalorian who saved the force-sensitive child my brother is training. Or at least, trying to train, as the youngling is refusing to follow his directions and appears quite… depressed. I am also told that you are the one who claimed the title of your people’s ruler. I realize that holograming you like this is quite unorthodox, but I’d like to take a moment of your time, because I think our interests go hand in hand. Let me start again: I know the Empire is not gone, and I’m afraid of what it will evolve into. Something is brewing, I can feel it, but I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s slouching towards us. And the truth is… I don’t have a lot of experience with Mandalorians. But I’ve heard many stories about your people. Most of them about how good you are at killing. Those don’t interest me. I’m curious about the parables praising your sense of honor. Songs about how the word of a Mandalorian is as solid as his armor. ---If you promise to align Mandalore with New Republic against the upcoming turmoil, I will do whatever I can to aid your efforts in restoring that honor to your homeworld. Let’s talk about our options. I’m including coordinates for my brother’s headquarters._

_**> >end_of_message / reply_save_or_delete? / reply_save_or_delete? / reply_save_or_delete? / message_saved>>** _

***

Many Masters have trained him over the years. 

Some are merely a foggy memory, while others stand out more clearly. Grogu doesn’t remember ever meeting the first one, Sabik. It seemed like xe has always been there. Xir face is long forgotten too, but when Grogu focuses, he can recall the sensation of xir presence in the Force. Grogu remembers holding onto a long strand of silver hair, and dark, ink-stained fingers gently prying his claws off it. He remembers xe trying to teach him many things and xir signature in Force flickering with passing annoyance when he couldn’t concentrate on what xe wanted from him. 

Those are the days spent swaddled in soft fabrics, pendulating between dream and reality. Those days, Grogu can barely move, but he travels the galaxy, suspended in place only through connection to xem and other lifeforms at the temple. 

He remembers words that he could not understand when they were being spoken, only when he felt them through the air.

_My littlest of padawans. The Force will devour you whole if you don’t focus your mind._

Grogu doesn’t know what it means to be a padawan. He doesn’t know what it means ‘to devour’. But somehow, he can sense what Sabik means and understands the urgency in xir voice. The Force’s current streams against Grogu’s skin, ready to reclaim him, and there are fleeting moments when it’s hard to say where he ends and other signatures begin. To slip into the ebb and flow would be just too easy.

The first lesson is on how to tether. With time, always punctuated with that impatient tap of fingers over xir crossed arms, Sabik teaches him to contain himself. 

Grogu feels grateful, his consciousness no longer floating unmoored. The days sharpen into focus and suddenly he’s able to conceive how they pass. Mornings, weeks, months; without warning time has started flying by. He’s no longer left to dream aimlessly, and the world becomes stationary. He looks at the ceiling above his bassinet and sees sandstone instead of a foreign galaxy.

He’s excited to learn more. The lessons keep coming, until one day Sabik is late. Grogu waits for his teacher and xe never comes. A different creche master shows up and tells him that last night Sabik reconnected with the Force.

Xe tried to teach Grogu a lot and, over time, he forgot a lot of it. But one lesson stuck: Masters always leave.

Years slog on, spent on meditation and training. Days blend into each other. Other Masters come and go. Unlike Sabik, they at least say goodbye.

There’s not a lot to do, but the Force always keeps him company. Grogu wonders sometimes if It likes him more than others. And if that's a good thing. 

At times, other padawans come up to his bassinet and play with him. The temple walls grow closer when Grogu learns to crawl. Faces around him change, new Force signatures appear and old go to distant places. 

But one day, the languor ends. 

He remembers only pieces. 

Blue. Flash. Red. Floor. Wet, smeared. Scream. Loud.

A pair of hands taking hold of him. Being wrapped in scratchy robes.

Grogu tries to recall what exactly has happened but he can’t. Every time he strains his memory to see past the fog, past muffled screams, his mind slips away, curving around something undefinable, something he knows deep down he doesn’t need to see.

The Force tells him It has all the answers. He believes It. But what he can glean himself is enough to know that he’s changing hands and places like someone’s favorite toy. 

The people who are with him now are not good or bad, they’re just indifferent. In their thoughts he sees himself as something useful and too valuable to touch.

He has a pram now and in its dark confines, he slips into dreams yet again. The Force welcomes him eagerly and opens the galaxy before his eyes. Time loses meaning once more. Sometimes it’s hours before his pram opens and he’s given a piece of meat to chew on. Sometimes it feels like days. The irregularity helps him stay treading the surface though. Without it, he could submerge all too easily. But when he feels himself slipping, he thinks about how long it has been since he was last fed. He takes the sensation of hunger and fiddles with it until his mind focuses enough not to glide off. 

The Force always offers to provide. 

Sometimes, when it seems way past due for the pram to open, he lets It. The Force is fraught and Grogu could easily choke on Its generosity. But he remembers his lessons and is always careful to take only enough to sustain himself. His Masters would be very, very proud, if they were still here.

There isn’t a lot to do when he doesn’t want to dream, so in the boredom of confinement, he makes up a game. It’s very simple: he traces the signatures around him. The Force tells him it’s not safe to show his sensitivity, so he’s mindful not to touch anyone, refraining himself to just feeling. There’s always so many of them! From time to time a new one shows up and fizzles out soon after. The Force drinks them all up.

One day Grogu is woken up from a dream by the happy noise of the Force, munching down on the destruction. It takes him a moment to realize that there are people dying all around the compound and a new, foreign signature in the middle of the carnage. 

This is not good. Grogu hides under his blanket and focuses on tracing the signatures until only two life forms remain, then only one. 

It comes closer to him. 

The pram opens. Words are spoken. Grogu holds his breath. A blaster shoots.

He is safe.

***

The pram floats through the air, following the man.

Grogu looks around the canyon they’re traversing, taking in all the differently shaped rocks and fleeting little creatures. It’s been so long since he has been outside. The sun hurts his eyes and the hot, dry desert air chafes his skin. He delights in it all, savoring the new sensations. 

Feeling the man before him is the weirdest of them all.

Grogu tries to stifle the impulse to reach into the man’s mind at first. He really tries. He’s not supposed to use his abilities. But he just has to know where they’re going. He pokes gently at the outline of the man’s presence, risks a question and frowns when it slides right off the shiny armor. So he tries again, more lively, nearly yelling at the man’s back.

He does not receive an answer. He’s not sure if his words even reached him. The man feels weird. He gleams bright against the sandy landscape, but when Grogu closes his eyes, he sees his silhouette in the Force as a caved-in, blurry spot that moves to the rhythm of the man’s steps. It’s harder to see the shiniest bits and Grogu suspects that in those places he is made out of something that doesn’t like the Force. He wonders if it’s a bad thing.

When they get attacked, the man protects him once more, making one of the bandits go poof right before Grogu’s eyes. And Grogu feels safe again.

The sensation is oddly familiar. He used to feel safe Before. 

This might be it, he thinks. Maybe, after so long, another Master finally has found him and is meaning to resume Grogu’s training. Maybe it's a test. So he tries harder to prove he can wield the Force. He prods the man with his own thoughts and tries to get past the shiny parts to really, really reach him and extract instructions. 

The attempts are not successful until they’re sitting by the firepit at night. The man is hurt. One of the bandits has got him; sliced a thin, deep rift into his arm. During the attack, he was scared that something would happen to Grogu and the fear makes him drive the cauterizing tool harder into the wound that he needs to. It hurts, but he doesn’t want to show it.

Grogu cooes in surprise when he realizes that the last bits of information were provided by the man himself. There’s a pathway now, narrow and long, but when he moves over it, he is able to slip past the barrier. 

The man’s in pain and hungry. There’s a ship somewhere on this planet and on it, a big lump of electronics that he needs to replace, and he counts up the cost. Sleep is pulling at the corner of his mind, but the warmth of the fire is welcomed.

Grogu leaves his pram and waddles towards his protector, feeling the Force around him thicken in preparation. And then he is grabbed and put back. This is a weird lesson, he thinks, but nonetheless, tries to heal him again. Same thing happens.

Slowly it dawns on Grogu that the man cannot hear him at all. The Force is barely interested in him anyway; It doesn’t talk about him more than it does about the lizards scattering around the circle of light formed by their firepit.

This is very curious. 

This man is not a new Master.

Maybe it means he won’t leave.

***

He leaves and comes back. Each time.

The first time it happens is scary. Grogu sees the stormtroopers and knows to expect pain in the near future. After he’s left alone, in the split second before the stun ray hits him, he has doubts. But then he wakes up in the man’s arms as blaster shots fly above them and he feels with all the intensity his small body can handle the man's resolve. It's not a promise. Promises assume a possibility of reneging. What Grogu feels is a cold fact: this man will die to protect him.

He's able to dematerialize people, throw fire from his hand and he’s so tall and wide he can make the whole world disappear behind him.

They go through the galaxy together. Grogu travels through lush forests filled with too many lifeforms to count, he has flown so high in the air that buildings below seem like bread crumbs. He can hardly believe the abundance of life that’s there to be savored. Every day brings a new adventure, sensation, lesson. It's a lot to take in, so at first he only samples small sips of the experiences. 

***

“When did you send him the message?”

The kind lady looks between him and his Master before replying. “Two days ago,” she says.

“It’s weird he didn’t respond.”

“My source says he’s a common bounty hunter from the Outer Rim. Are you sure Grogu wasn’t just his charge, paid to be delivered to you?”

“No, that’s not it. Paid for by who?” Master Luke spreads his arms in exasperation.

“Maybe whoever saved him from the Temple in the first place?” the lady says. Master seems to mull this over.

Grogu’s ears drop. He buries his face in the folds of his jumper, losing interest in the conversation. There are so many of them in this place; a seemingly endless loop of people coming and talking and going and coming back to talk some more. He catches glimpses of the consultations taking place, sometimes observes deals being made and he’s sure that more children will join him here. The place will brim with life, talk and play. Like Before. 

His Master, Luke, talks a lot too. He’s nice, Grogu has decided on their very first day together. Kind. He wears a soft, black glove. It’s smooth and clean. New. Doesn’t smell of oil and grime, there are no cracks in the leather that would scratch Grogu’s skin. 

Everything here is soft and new, actually.

The building can’t be older than just a few years and its sandstone walls are a familiar, muted beige. It’s situated in the comfortable upper levels, far above the dense, festering wound of the underground. He has his own bed, with clean sheets and fluffy pillows, and when he lays there at night, there are no sounds of clanking or snoring to mar the silence. The first few times he has trouble falling asleep. 

The rooms and corridors of this place stretch for much longer than Grogu can walk in one day, but from what he’s seen most of it looks the same. Master takes him out daily to the garden in the backyard for a few hours. On the first day Master glowed with pride as he showed him the grove and beds of flowers. Grogu was met with his joyful reassurance that yes, _all of this_ is for him to explore. They finished their tour in just a few minutes. 

All he has to do is sit in the sun, soak in the smell of flowers and float a rock from time to time. They talk, too.

Master Luke tells Grogu about Master Yoda, about Coruscant and his father, who was a Jedi too, once. The first few days all they do is share. It’s nice. Luke can understand him. There’s no need to strain his thoughts because they are all there for Master to read. The most excitement he gets is when he occasionally has to hold a thought back from spilling out.

“It’s interesting how I can see that man’s face in your memory, but not in his,” the kind lady, Leia, says, turning back to Grogu.

He looks up, his ears rising. He cocks his head, letting her warm thoughts wash over him.

“It’s like that for you too? Huh.” Master Luke looks on in surprise. “There are things he doesn't want us to know. That we weren’t supposed to know, I think. He knows more about the Mandalorian, like his name, but it’s not something we’re supposed to know.”

“He feels protective of him.” Now she seems sad. “Their bond is strong. Perhaps...”

“He needs to be trained, Leia,” Master says.

She wants to say something else. Grogu can sense the doubt coming off her in waves and he’s not the boy she has in mind.

“Yes,” she says finally. “The younger the better for him. This is the way of the Jedi.”

Grogu feels around his jumper for the pendant. His short arms fiddle around in the fabric for a while before he manages to pull it out. Beskar glints lightly in the yellow afternoon light and when Grogu shakes it, the Force moves out of its way. He runs his claw over the figurine, catching it on the ridges of the mythosaur's teeth. 

Grogu puts the pendant in his mouth and clicks his teeth on it. It feels nice to suck on the cold metal and rub it on his gums. 

The taste reminds him of a hard, smooth chestplate he could rap his claws on. Of a strong hand holding him securely in the crook of an arm while the ground whooshes towards them. Sharp edge of utility belt he has fallen asleep pressed to.

There’s no way to bite through, he has learned a long time ago. The man is covered in beskar and nothing could ever gnaw through him. Not a mudhorn, not a krayt dragon, not a lightsaber. 

His presence in the Force so faint and faraway, Grogu squeezes the pendant harder, just to remind himself that at least it is still here.

After his sister leaves, Master decides on a course of action. He takes Grogu into the empty chamber they've been using for training, and sits down on one the pads in the middle, before placing Grogu in front of him.

Grogu whines, part in expectancy, part out of boredom.

“Hey, little one,” he says, his hand reaching out to brush one of Grogu’s ears. “I know you’ve been a little distracted lately and that’s okay. You miss your dad too much, huh?”

He agrees, although it’s not easy. Attachments lead astray, it’s what his Masters taught him. He can’t ask them to explain again why, because they are all gone.

His current Master looks at it a bit differently and Grogu hasn’t figured out yet what to think of the change in curriculum.

“I can show you how to reach him through the Force,” Master says and Grogu’s ears perk up in interest.

“I know your previous Masters showed you how to meditate. As they said, we have to be careful not to submerge too deeply.” The caution is clear in Master’s voice.

Master Luke’s only brushed the deeper levels. He has never fed off It. He thinks of the Force like a wild blurgg that can be tamed enough to ride it. As something pure that can be contaminated. For people like him, wielding it is an art that others mangle.

Master knows the Force. But Grogu knows It for longer.

Nonetheless, the role of a padawan is to follow Master’s instructions and Grogu longs to see if their attempt is successful.

“This will help us,” Master says. He puts a small sack on the floor between them and opens it up to reveal a heap of glass marbles of different colors. They’re small and shiny. Grogu decides on the spot to sneak one into his robes for later.

“We will focus on levitating those to have something grounding us to this room, so our minds don't slip off too far,” Master continues. “There’s about forty here, but I think we can start with five. Can you choose five of them and pick them up for me?” he asks with a gentle smile.

Grogu blinks up at him and looks at the sack, before closing his eyes. The Force is all around them, except in the inanimate things, like the pile of marbles. He zeroes on the shapes of Its absence, the way It squeezes into crevices between individual spheres. He sets his mind on what he wants to happen and… all forty three marbles fly up into the air. They float above and beside like colorful hail, suspended in time. Some of them catch on rays of sunlight streaming through the high windows and glimmer. Grogu looks around, pleased with himself.

Master Luke gasps in surprise and his face opens up with a grin. “Okay, you little show-off,” he laughs. “Let me help you hold them up.” He closes his eyes and Grogu follows.

“Now, while you think of your dad, feel the Force, let it wash over you.” Grogu hears the Master's soft voice. The Force, not soft, lays in wait, twitching around him. 

“Remember this room, the colors of the walls, how far we are from them and how the marbles hover in the air here,” Master continues. “Let it be a welcoming reminder we can come back to after we go exploring.”

Next words he doesn’t hear, but feels them instead. Master is guiding him towards thoughts of someone he knows only as a Mandalorian. Grogu sees himself being held by him on the bridge of an imperial cruiser. The man’s face, unlawfully available to the world, looks sadder in Master’s memory than Grogu remembers.

He squeezes his eyes harder, and appears back in the man’s arms, looking up at him. He reaches his hand to touch the man’s face for the first time and the man smiles at the touch. That’s better. Grogu cooes happily. He runs his claws over the man’s cheek and chin, feeling the rough texture of his stubble. He looks up into his eyes, same color as his own. 

The Masters have lectured him about the danger of attachment. They haven’t said anything about how good it can feel. 

He allows himself to remember long hours on the ship, spent watching the man tinker with all kinds of fascinating buttons and levers. Falling asleep listening to the orchestra of ship noises and soft snoring. The way droplets of rain glistened on his armor before sliding off, all in different tracks. How it felt when warm soup touched his tongue and he gulped it down, warmth spreading to his belly. A metal basin filled with soapy water he could splash all around, making his own music to accompany the man’s complaints.

The memories guide him. Grogu’s body is at Coruscant, but his self raises up from the building and over the city. Its many levels beckon him with the stagnant smell of inertia, but he leaves the city in the clouds behind. He flies to the sky and touches the dark void of space. He is nothing against the expanse of stars he drifts by but in the tight embrace of the Force, his path is clear before him. The galaxy sprawls before his eyes. Off in the distance, he can sense the outlines of other clusters, adulterated by the same essence that dwells within him.

The man he came to call father is a part of the tapestry of life, a little kink in the fabric that the Force can’t quite smooth out. He is there, alive and out of harm.

The Force offers to provide more and Grogu has to say yes. 

The void expands and he steps in. It’s a slow trek and with every step his legs seem heavier, but the Force lulls his reservations. Are they even his own? 

/Grogu. Grogu, it’s time to come back./ The voice feels foreign but maybe that’s just how his thoughts sound. Grogu’s not sure. There are so many sounds, quadrillion life forms screaming for his attention.

/Do you remember the temple, the marbles? What is the color of the walls?/

There is no temple, it was destroyed. No, wait, that was earlier. Grogu frowns in confusion. He doesn’t care for these questions. 

Show me Dad, he asks. The Force crackles in excitement and hungrily obliges.

He gets closer. He can see him clearly now.

Grogu looks around the scrapyard. It looks like the edges of Nevarro, old barracks standing between heaps of metal parts from all kinds of places. 

Father argues with someone. Grogu rarely heard such a sharp edge to his voice. He waddles closer, coming up to the man’s boot and tapping it lightly. His leg twitches, he looks down for a slip second and simply steps aside.

The language he speaks to the shopkeeper is foreign to Grogu but he has insight into what goes in the man’s head. 

Credits, ship, credits, credits, not enough.

[I’m here,] he risks saying, but is ignored.

Din slaps his fist on his palm, his voice rising. He wants the new ship and he wants it now.

[But we already have a ship,] Grogu tries to tell him.

Credits, need a ship, we had a deal. The thoughts are repeating in a crescendo leaving no space for anything else.

[Dad, I’m right here. Why do you need another ship? Dad, please. I miss you.]

Father turns on his heel with a last shout at the shopkeeper and leaves the scrapyard, kicking over a droid that stumbled under his feet. His thoughts are biting; in them Grogu finds Greef Karga, Tatooine, _credits credits credits_ , coordinates, ship.

And Grogu wonders, [Am I not on your mind at all?].

The Force pulls at Grogu’s seams, promising to show a way to use what he’s feeling. It tempts him to submit to the building rage and let it open a new pathway. He deserves it, after all. He deserves to be angry. He has the right to hate how this unfolded.

Grogu takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. His dad never got angry with him.

When he opens his eyes, he’s back on Coruscant. The glass marbles all rain down around him and Master Luke, who’s holding him in his arms.

“Oh, thank the Force,” Master gasps. His eyes are blue and wet. “Grogu, I thought you’d… It’s been fourteen hours! And then I couldn’t...” He brings Grogu close to his chest, hugging him tightly. 

His own body feels foreign, too small, skin too tightly pulled over the sinew. And he’s tired, so very tired, he sighs, settling in the crook of his Master’s arm.

Before he drifts off to sleep, he notes another tough lesson.

The Jedi never taught him how to love.

And the man who did, gave him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said they'll be reunited in this part, but I didn't mean like this! This chapter just took a life of its own. But I promise, good things are coming for Din&Grogu and they WILL get so many hugs they'll get bored of them. 
> 
> If you liked this update, please leave a comment. Same goes for if you didn't like it :D I don't really subscribe to the idea that since fanfiction is done for free, it shouldn't be criticized; especially here I'm sure my take on how the force works might raise an eyebrow or two. So let me know what you think! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Well, if there’s a ragged edge to the universe, Coruscant is the planet farthest from it.

The whole globe is one big city. An intertwined fabric of streets, paths and highways, pulsing with light and movement, the thread of it thick in some places and loosened in others.

You’re never alone on Coruscant, the ecumenopolis just won’t allow it.

There’s not a acre left uninhabited and the oppressive weight of all lifeforms is almost unbearable to handle if he focuses on it too much. But there are places where it’s a little alleviated. 

Far from the political heart of the planet, the infrastructure moves away from the multitiered skyscrapers. Still densely packed, the buildings press on each other, but there’s no underground hidden in the depths of the narrow streets. In some places, you can even carry on without a speeder bike.

Luke doesn’t miss Tatooine. 

There’s nothing to be missed about it. Nothing, aside from maybe the feeling of standing alone in the desert, the other sun not yet above the horizon, with not a soul to keep you company. 

He fears he didn’t appreciate the clarity of those lonely moments back then.

Early morning is the only time when the air on Coruscant can be described as something other than a suffocant. Luke could say it’s almost crisp, especially with the chill that runs in recent days. Still, as soon as the streets start to fill and bikes come out, breathing without a mask can only be allowed in the tightly controlled microclimate of his under-the-dome garden.

Luke makes his way to the shop and quickly gets the resources he needs. Walking down the street is a luxury in itself, one not afforded to the people living near the suppurating center of Galactic politics. 

What would be considered a poor man’s misery on Tatooine, here is a sign of privilege.

The place for his school was chosen in consideration of this fact. Far from the Senate, away from the ruins of the last place referred to as the Jedi Temple, he hopes for a better start. 

Even if the planet lost its geopolitical influence in recent years, it still maintains control. There are still influential people here. There are still people who stood by when the Empire rose in power.

Which means this is where Luke needs to be. 

On the way back, he passes a stall on the cornerstreet, selling jogan fruit. Curious if Grogu will like it, he buys a few of them and adds to his basket.

There was clarity in isolation on Tatooine, unwelcome then. Yearning for the action, missing his friends, he felt that being by himself chafed him like a bantha’s spit. 

Luke eyes the companion who has joined him by his side. He slows down his pace, a gesture as unnecessary as it is heartfelt. They walk for a moment together, before Luke speaks up.

“Did it feel like that for you, too? Years, passing by faster, the older you got?”

Master Yoda guffaws, his cane swinging in the air. “Old, he thinks himself now! Interesting that is.”

Luke smiles, his eyes on the narrow cobble path ahead. Hard to compare the scope of their lifetimes, but he can't help but wonder. If days seem to blur together for him now… what would it feel like after a century, two of them? Nine?

“I just fear I’m getting stuck in my ways a little bit, Master Yoda,” Luke says. Every day used to bring the unexpected, used to be chiseled into Luke’s memory. The prospect of death followed him around day after day, as it did with all rebels. Lots of people were lost. 

Yesterday, he almost lost his first and only padawan. He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t have to.

Yoda sniffs, his cane tapping on the ground as he walks. “Fear. Fear’s allowed to assist you, in times so exciting?”

Luke sighs. “Perhaps others could see the excitement in creating a whole new schooling system that the next generations will rely on. But I’m not a scholar.”

“Thousands of years of history at stake are. Bad at this, you have no right to be.” Yoda frowns at him sternly.

Luke can’t help himself, he shoots off. “Were _you_ happy with everything you accomplished?”

Master Yoda is quiet for a moment. “Trained you, didn’t I? How nice of me that was!” The non-corporeal cane swings again, this time close to Luke’s arm. 

Luke almost wishes his other Master was here instead, before remembering that Obi-Wan Kenobi could be just as grating. If not more.

Perhaps that’s what’s missing, the vital part of being a Master he was never explicitly told about: he needs to annoy Grogu more.

“Do you guys even control which one of you comes forward? You know, I could use the advice of the Mandalorian who was inducted into the Order.”

“Why to old men you turn to talk about your Temple? To arrive at your answer, the way this is not,” Yoda laughs, as if he told a joke.

“What do you mean?”

“The mind of a child. A wonderful thing,” Yoda says and with that, leaves him alone.

Luke huffs in frustration, but he’s almost back at his school. Temple. Whatever. 

As he’s coming to the gate, he realizes he’s not alone again. 

There’s a signature waiting for him in the twisted alleyway leading away from where he came from. It seems familiar, but Luke can’t quite put his finger on why. For a moment he allows himself to hope that his wish was granted and that another Jedi Master from the past came to visit him. He has to shake that off fast. This is a living being, but for some reason their personhood eludes definition; the manner of it also ringing a distant bell. It’s like a memory of a song heard in a cantina, the tune of it edging a notch in Luke’s mind, but the lyrics escape, preventing identification.

Luke puts the basket with his purchases in his left hand, the dominant one instinctively goes to rest on the handle of his lightsaber. He scans the surroundings, the narrow alleyways forking away. Surreptitiously, he checks his wrist. There’s no distress signal from R2D2, so things at home should be alright.

Luke raises his hand. “Come out or I will drag you out.”

His jaw unclenches the moment the figure steps out from behind the corner.

“I want to see him,” the Mandalorian says. “Please.”

Luke relaxes at once, the rare armor impossible not to recognize and its Force impairing feature suddenly clear.

“It’s you,” he smiles, widely. “Maker, the properties of beskar are incredible. I think I read about that. It’s pure, isn’t it?”

He takes a step forward and immediately regrets it. 

The man’s shoulders set in a rigid line, helmet dipping as if he’s ready to square off an attack. Luke stops himself from coming closer. He doesn't need to look into the man’s mind to see the hostility.

“I’m sorry. I can’t feel your presence the same way I do with others, because of what you’re wearing. Beskar… dampens Force abilities. I think,” he adds as an afterthought. If there was a lot of research about that ever, it’s now all lost. As with hundreds of other manuscripts, thousands of years of knowledge.

“Where’s Grogu?” the man asks.

“Grogu’s safe,” Luke says. “I’ll take you to him.”

At that, the Mandalorian visibly relaxes. At least enough for a hint of indignation to slip into his voice. “You left him alone?”

“He’s fine, he’s protected by my droids.”

Something about the man makes Luke think he does not like that. 

As he opens the gate, he throws over his shoulder, “So, you got my sister's message. Are you willing to meet with her?”

“No.” 

With the sun already much higher than when Luke left, the streets behind them begin to fill with people and speeders. The air gets familiarly heavy with the stench of pollution, Luke notes, as they start walking in silence over the winding path to the main building.

“I’m sorry,” the man says then. “I don't mean disrespect. It’s just my luck that Grogu’s teacher has to be related to the leader of the rebellion and current minister of state.

Luke’s mouth drops open in a way that cannot be attractive and it takes some self-discipline to school his expression into a neutral one. He walks, staring ahead for a moment. “Oh, I was actually involved in the rebellion too,” he says with some blithe.

“I see.” The Mandalorian seems to be thinking it over. “In what capacity, as a pilot? That’s why you have the X-wing?”

“Yeah, mostly as a pilot,” Luke says. If he’d built up any ego in the recent years, it evaporated within the last minute. His sister must never know that it’s the Mandalorian’s influence, or she won’t let the man leave Coruscant. Which wouldn’t be such a bad thing, Luke decides, allowing his gaze to slide down the man’s shoulders. 

“So… you’re... in enforcement?” the Mandalorian asks, bringing Luke’s thoughts back down to the mundane matter of his ship.

“No, they just let me keep it after the war.”

“Of course they did,” the man says.

Luke is certain his guest thinks the generosity’s due to his connection to Leia. He shakes his head, voting not to broach the subject. “What have you been up to since we parted ways?” he prompts instead.

Luke eyes the man, expecting an answer, but it doesn't come. He's not used to walking with someone in total silence, so he tries on a sheepish smile and speaks again. “Grogu is more difficult to train than I expected. He’s stubborn.”

The wave of affection that rolls off the Mandalorian nearly makes Luke lose his step. 

Despite it, the man says evenly, “Is that so? It was hardly ever an issue when he was with me.”

 _Ouch_ , Luke thinks, but another observation doesn’t let him focus on it. Something has changed about the man’s ambience and Luke is surprised by how much better he can sense his emotions. It's to do with Grogu. Shared affection for his padawan shines like a headlight on the path to the man’s mind.

As they come up to the heavy, seal-proof door to the school, the man stops and turns to face him.

"What you said before about beskar…” he starts and cuts himself off.

Luke’s hand hesitates over the keypad and falls from it. “Yeah?” he prods.

The next words come out in a rush. “Has being with me for so long stunted his powers?"

“No,” Luke says right away, before he even thinks about it. He runs a hand through his hair, giving the question a moment to marinate. “No,” he repeats. “If anything, it sharpened them, because he had to try harder to sense your signature in the Force.”

The vocoder in the man’s helmet picks up a soft ‘oh’. 

They stand together for a moment, long enough for Luke to reach out and tap in the code to open the door, but when it slides open, the Mandalorian doesn’t move. Luke glares at him expectantly. The outside air, while still breathable at this hour, is not something he wants to invite into his home.

“Senator Organa said Grogu wasn’t feeling well.” It’s not exactly stated as a question.

But now Luke sees the man’s thoughts, infused with fear, uncertainty, yearning.

“Yes, I have a theory as to why,” Luke says and beacons the man with a wave of a hand. The door slide closed behind them. He puts his basket down and looks at the expressionless helmet. “Your kid’s homesick.”

Immediately, Luke knows he didn’t phrase it well. There’s a gaping hole in the man’s mind where home should be; flashes of why run before Luke’s eyes, too fast and skittish for him to really take them in.

Worst of all, a new set of feelings swirl inside the man, _hope, affection, resolve_ , but he forces it all down, not allowing himself to believe.

“Yesterday,” Luke continues. “Grogu tried to reach out to you. He tried really hard. From what I know, he managed to project his consciousness across the galaxy, which is incredibly rare.”

The man’s head tilts, listening in. “He…was there?”

Luke nods. “It’s not your fault, if you couldn’t see him,” he says gently. “He misunderstood it at first, but I explained to him that you wouldn’t reject him, if you knew.”

The Mandalorian stays silent after that.

Luke can feel Grogu deep in the building, positively vibrating with excitement and trepidation. The emotions are mirrored in the man beside him, whose steps seem to slow the closer they get to Grogu’s room.

The door is opened. The Mandalorian steps into the sleeping chamber and stops in his tracks.

Grogu sits on his small bed on the other side of the room. His ears raise up slightly, but other than that, there’s no movement.

Luke watches as the Mandalorian’s helmet shifts toward him and back to the kid. He is struck by the realization that the man is still unsure if he’s welcome.

“He wants you here. Go on,” he says softly.

The Mandalorian sways but his feet don’t move, as if rooted to the ground. Instead of coming closer to Grogu, he starts rummaging in one of the small pockets he keeps on his utility belt. From it, comes out some kind of industrial knob. Luke raises an eyebrow but before he can speak, he feels Grogu’s energy spike with delight.

“Hey, kid,” the Mandalorian says. The modulator in his helmet nearly emits the words as cracks, much rougher than he sounded outside. “Remember this?”

Grogu flops his ears, but stays uncharacteristically silent.

Luke regards the two, their energies are likewise fraught with longing, happiness, a tender kind of dissolvement of apprehension. It’s like they fit together perfectly in the force, the negative space between them only working to underline how the edges of their signatures match.

The Mandalorian picks the knob up between his thumb and index finger and holds it up, waving it at Grogu. “You can have it, if you’d like.”

The knob stays in his hand for just a moment, before it swoops into the air. The vocoder in the man’s helmet picks up his surprised gasp.

Luke watches as the knob flies through the air, around the Mandalorian, making hoops before suddenly it strikes right at him, flinging off the beskar chestpiece. 

“Ah!” The Mandalorian yelps in surprise, his hands coming up on instinct to block it. The knob swings at him again, and again, hitting a pauldron, a vambrace, the helmet. Then it flies off to Grogu with one more swirl on the way, before settling on Grogu’s hand.

Luke’s mouth drops open. “Grogu, rude! What are you do—”

The Mandalorian laughs.

It’s the last thing Luke expected and the shock shuts him right up. He stares in silence as the man all but runs up to his padawan and kneels in front of his bed, his hands cupping the small form.

“Kriff, you’ve gotten so good with that!” the man exclaims. “And in just two weeks? You’re… you’re so talented, kid.” His voice gets rough again. It might just be an issue with the helmet, but Luke could swear he hears a choking sound. The man’s head hangs low on his chest now; Grogu’s little paws rest on it, caressing the top of the shiny beskar helmet.

What happens next takes a moment for Luke to understand. An image swats at him like a rogue tree branch, unexpected but only until you realize it was coiled back taut for too long already.

He sees his own likeness, standing right where he is, but in the projection, he’s turning his back to the pair. The concept is clear, he’s not supposed to see what’s going to happen next. He sends a quick acknowledgement to Grogu before doing as he’s told.

For a while, he hears nothing, long enough that he starts to feel silly. But then comes a soft hiss he recognizes as the helmet being depressurized. A clank, meaning it’s set on the tiled floor.

The facts slide into place soon enough. Luke remembers an article on the holonet about an ancient denomination of Mandalorians who vowed to never take off their armor. He read about it while researching the bounty hunter Han accidently threw into the sarlacc, as he was also known for keeping his face hidden.

Why should it matter? Luke has already seen his face. His kind eyes, welled up with tears, curly hair sticking in all directions. It’s not an image easy to erase from one’s memory.

But people don’t submit to religious rituals because they make sense. They do it because it gives them comfort. Having experienced how harsh the galaxy is on his own skin, Luke cannot bring himself to deny anyone the soft respite that observance can grant. 

His padawan coos happily. There are soft words spoken, choked-up breaths. Long minutes pass. Luke closes his eyes, trying not to think of another reunion, from years ago. They weren’t given a lot of time then.

The helmet clicks on and the Mandalorian clears his throat. “Thank you,” he croaks out and it takes Luke a second to realize that he’s being spoken to.

He turns back to them. “No problem,” he says. Grogu is nestled in the crook of the man’s left arm. His ears are high and his face smiling wide.

 _Safe_ , their energies say.

What is love if not finding someone you feel safe with? And how could Jedi ever see that as an impediment to growth?

“I’d like to stay for the day, if that’s possible,” the man says.

Luke eyes the straight line of his shoulders, the way he stands, free hand curled into a fist next to his blaster. 

“Of course you can stay,” he tells him and predictably, the man’s whole posture relaxes right before his eyes. Luke suspects that if the Mandalorian ever played sabacc, the helmet would be a necessity for him to even have a chance at winning.

The man gives him a sharp nod. “I can sleep in here, if that’s alright,” he nods at the chair in the corner.

“There are sleeping quarters on the other side of the corridor,” Luke says. “I mean, not only mine, there are a lot of empty rooms there,” he adds quickly. The other man doesn’t seem to pay much attention, thank the Force.

“Whatever you prefer,” the Mandalorian says, caressing one of Grogu’s ears. “I have another favour to ask, if you don’t mind,” the man says and picks up a kilt from his belt. “My people invented this special kind of laser sword. It’s called the darksaber,” he tells him and lights the saber on. 

Luke sucks in a breath. The weapon is like nothing he’s ever seen and he’s itching to try it out.

“I can’t leave it here,” the man says sharply even though Luke didn't think to ask him. “It belongs with Mandalorians.”

Luke nods. “What would you like me to do with it then?”

The man shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He switches the darksaber off and flicks it in his hand, making a broad gesture. “I’m going to have to battle someone who wants it. It’ll have to look convincing, but…” The last part is spoken quietly, as if admitting to a dark secret. “I don’t really have a lot of experience with this kind of weaponry.”

Not many people do, Luke wants to say, but he can discern from the man’s thoughts that this a question of Mandalorian pride and admitting to not being good at any type of combat should be read as a sign of trust alone.

“Okay then, I’ll be happy to give you some pointers,” he says.

The man nods. “Thank you.”

“One question though.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you need to battle someone?”

The man sighs as if all the galaxy’s weight rests on his shoulders. “Whoever wields this sword gets to call on all other Mandalorians and they have to follow them. That’s no life for me.”

“So that’s what Leia was referring to when she said you became royalty overnight.”

“I’m not—” the man is quick to say. “Mandalorians don’t have kings.” Luke can feel him seizing up if the concept itself put him in physical pain. “It’s more like a… head of the armed forces position.”

Luke raises an eyebrow at the terminology. You can still be a king if your meager court counts a handful of survivors. To lead an army— That implies numbers, the likes of which the Mandalorian people haven’t seen since they were purged. He files that thought for later. “You’re saying without the darksaber, you’re useless to my sister.”

The man tilts his head and when he speaks next, Luke is surprised to hear amusement in his voice. “Yes. Yes, I am. She’ll be happy to conduct diplomacy with my successor, who was already born into nobility. Like you two.”

Luke turns that phrase in his mind a few times, before arriving to its meaning. “If Bo-Katan wants this weapon, does it mean she is a threat to you and your kid?”

“To me, perhaps. I suppose she’ll want some kind of public display of defeat in combat, but it doesn’t involve Grogu.”

“Are you certain?”

“Mandalorians wouldn't hurt a child.”

The Force proves invaluable once more, because if it weren’t for the sincerity wafting off the man, Luke would read his words as sarcastic.

But he believes what he’s saying, which means he doesn’t know.

Luke purses his lips, trying to come up with a non provocative way to voice that particular concern. “I have some historical chroniques that you might find interesting and I’ll gladly let you look them over. You’ll see the records about Deathwatch there. That Kryze was a dutiful member of.”

“What do you mean?” the man asks, his hackles rising.

“Deathwatch was a terrorist group operating on your homeworlds. Killing entire families during the civil wars on Mandalore, Concordia and Concord Dawn. Children included,” he answers.

After that statement, Luke doesn’t have to parse the emotions erupting from deep within the man. It’s just a pure, unadulterated anger. Grogu whines under the pressure of it and the man holds him even closer, unknowing of the effect on the kid.

“Then she’s not really a Mandalorian,” he says decisively. He takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulders, before looking down at Grogu and caressing one of his ears. Just like that, all the rage evaporates and is replaced by the previous mix of fondness and gratitude.

“You’re not going to battle her then?”

“Oh, I will, if it comes down to it. But I’m going to win. Until someone worthy comes along, I suppose.” 

He says it just like that, as if he didn’t just admit to not knowing how to even fight with the saber. As if it was that simple: duty dictates him to win, so he will. 

“I’ll be happy to study your texts,” the man says after a long pause. “I’m getting tired of being blindsided by the galaxy’s high politics.”

Luke huffs out a laugh. Likewise, he wants to reply. Instead, he says, “I’ll come back for you two when it’s time for dinner,”and leaves them to catch up on lost time. 

The metal knob swirls in the air as he closes the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate all the kudos, bookmarks and especially comments - they really brighten up my day! Thank you to everyone sticking with this story, despite the rare updates. I'm going to have to take even longer to update this time - slowly, the plot I was hinting at is going to take off and I want to have more written before posting, so I can make sure I have it planned out right.  
> In the meantime, you can check out my other Gen stories, both from Grogu's POV: [Enrichment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29026311) (Din&Grogu) and [Hide and Seek](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29983044) (Grogu&Winta).


End file.
